"Then I took the houses by rote, askin' at each one for Jemimy Morey. Up one street, down another, I went, the little red brick boxes lookin' as like as one honeycomb ter another; most of 'em was empty—all at the mills except the old women and babies; the fust could n't give me no kind of an answer, an' the second I stumbled over.
"It was gettin' towards six, an' I war n't no nearer findin' what I 'd come fer than when I started, when I heard a factory bell ringin' an' asked what it meant. They told me a quarter ter six an' shuttin' off steam. I started on a dead run fer the little footbridge thet led from the canal alongside, to the mill gates. There I took my stand jest as the six o'clock whistle blew and the great mill gates was hoisted, an' the women an' children come flockin' out an' over the bridge.
"I asked every squad of 'em—they could n't get by me without answerin' me fer 't was only a foot-bridge—if they knew a mill hand by name Jemimy Morey?
"For five minutes I got pretty much the same answer, then a little slip of a gal no higher'n my elbow says: 'What d' you want of her? You can't see her for she 's up at Granny's sick of the fever, an' nobody dass n't go near her.'
"There 's no use my tellin' you how I found her nor what we said—only 't war n't exactly what I 'd planned all through hayin' time when, noonin's, I 'd stretch out in the shadder of a hayrick an', buryin' my face in the coolin' grass, think how 't would seem to have her hand strokin' my forehead an' smoothin' all care away by her lovin' ways.
"Jest as soon as she was strong enough, I took her home; an' without much ceremony, she sittin' in the arm-chair an' I standin' by her side, we was made man an' wife.... Oh, we was happy! an' thet choice of our happiness, for we both knew it war n't for long. I 've sometimes thought we took out a mortgage on our future bliss we was so happy.... Six months from the day I took her home, the church bell tolled nineteen—an' might have tolled a thousand for all I heard."
XX
There was a long silence; no one cared to break it. As for me, I felt as if stricken dumb by what I was hearing. I knew, intuitively, what I was about to hear. Mrs. Macleod put her hand on Cale's hard brown fist as it lay on his knee. I am sure the sympathetic pressure prolonged the silence. Doctor Rugvie and Jamie were staring into the fire. I could not take my eyes from Cale's face; I was as if fascinated. He, on the contrary, never looked once my way.
His voice grew husky towards the last; it was not till he had cleared his throat several times that he could speak.