A sharp creaking sound, faint at first, but gradually drawing nearer, made her look round; and presently, a bend in the road showed a queer, unwieldy object looming through the haze. It revealed itself, coming closer, as a light cart, drawn by an old chestnut horse that hung its head, shuffling wearily through the dust as though its load had drained it of every particle of energy it had once possessed. Piled high on the cart was furniture: stretchers and bedding, a kitchen-table, a battered meat-safe, and a few rough chairs, with wooden boxes filled with hastily-packed odds and ends. Two dirty children of five and six years old were perched in corners among the load. Beside the horse—it was clearly not necessary to guide it in any way—walked a woman, covered with dust, and carrying a younger child. She stumbled often as she walked, never lifting her face. At intervals she said, mechanically, “Gee up, Bawly!”—a remark which had no effect whatever upon the chestnut horse.
The creaking that had first attracted Mrs. Hurst’s attention came from the off-wheel. The sound was rapidly growing more acute, rising to a long-sustained screech that was the clearest possible demand for more oil: but the woman trudging by the horse’s head did not seem to notice it. A step sounded near Mrs. Hurst, and she glanced round, to meet Danny’s friendly gaze.
“Evenin’, Mrs. Hurst,” he said. “I jus’ come over to see if yous was all right. Been a cow of a day, hasn’t it?—an’ the smoke’s thicker than ever. Wonder who them travellers are? They’ll have a hot axle if they don’t watch it.”
“I was just thinking that, Danny,” Mrs. Hurst said. “Poor things, how tired they look!” She opened the gate and went out into the road.
“Good-evening,” she said, gently. “Your wheel is very stiff, isn’t it? Won’t you rest here for a few minutes while I get you some oil for it?”
The woman had started violently at her voice. The chestnut horse pulled up thankfully, and dropped his nose yet farther earthwards.
“I been thinkin’ it wouldn’t get us much farther,” she said, dully. “Trouble is, I don’t know how much farther we got to go.”
“Have you come far?”
“Out of the hills,” she nodded vaguely backward. “We been on the track all day. Any township near here?”
“Not for two miles.”