She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slender foot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat—it hid her hair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupied with what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings—to the old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows.
Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Through the mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw the different objects in a golden light and shade—the brass warming-pan hanging beside the tall eight-day clock—the table in front of the long window-seat, covered with its checked red cloth—the carved door of a cupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679—the miscellaneous store of things packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, cattle-medicines, and the like—the heavy oaken chairs—the settle beside the fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room for winter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peat fire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feet below, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, had maintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of the farm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned from October to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there must be many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in together from the world outside by wastes of snow.
Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro—the rising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmed to the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something more human—more poetic even—than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale.
She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw Hubert
Mason looking at her.
Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under the shelter of her dress.
"I was thinking of what it must be in winter," she said hurriedly. "I know I should like it."
"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut your throat. I say, where are you staying?"
"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother was still living, didn't you?"
"Well, I didn't think aught about it," he said, falling into candour, because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair and full upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind.
"I wrote to you—to Cousin Elizabeth—when my father died," she said simply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him.