'What made yo late, Davy?' he asked him, as he stood over him.
David had more than half a mind not to answer, but at last he jerked out fiercely, 'Waitin for th' second post, fust; then t' donkey fell down half a mile out o' t' town, an th' things were spilt. There was nobody about, an' I had a job to get 'un up at a'.'
Reuben nervously thrust his hands far into his coat-pockets.
'Coom wi me, Davy, an I'st mak yor aunt gie yer yor dinner.'
'I wouldn't eat a morsel if she went down on her bended knees to me,' the lad broke out, and, springing up, he strode sombrely through the yard and into the fields.
Reuben went slowly back into the house. Hannah was in the parlour—so he saw through the half-opened door. He went into the room, which smelt musty and close from disuse. Hannah was standing over the open drawer of an old-fashioned corner cupboard, carefully scanning a letter and enclosure before she locked them up.
'Is 't Mr. Gurney's money?' Reuben said to her, in a queer voice.
She was startled, not having heard him come in, but she put what she held into the drawer all the more deliberately, and turned the key.
'Ay, 't is.'
Reuben sat himself down on one of the hard chairs beside the table in the middle of the room. The light streaming through the shutters Hannah had just opened streamed in on his grizzling head and face working with emotion.