Gone to Earth

by Mary Gladys Meredith Webb

Vessons did not turn. He fumbled with the door-handle. Reddin got up and went across to him.

'Why, Vessons?' he said again, with a hand on his shoulder. 'You and I can't part, you know.'

'We mun.'

'But why, man? What's up with you, Andrew?'

The rare Christian name softened Vessons. He deigned to explain. 'She is,' he said, with a sidelong nod at Hazel. 'She mocked me.'

'Did you, Hazel?'

'Now then, missus!' Vessons glared at her.

'I only said—'

'Her said, "Never will I!"' shouted Vessons. 'Ah, that's what her said—"Never will I!" That's what I say,' he added with the pride of a phrase-maker.

Reddin could make nothing of them, one so red and angry, the other in tears.