“Will you ride a little way with me? There is not much more to be seen here, and I fancy they have noticed us, and are getting shy. Ah, it’s too late, for here comes young Gorwyn to offer us a drink. We must accept it, I suppose, and only pray that ’tisn’t in a cup they have all been using.”
Young Gorwyn, the master of the ceremonies, the son and apprentice of the blacksmith, carried the cup of cider very carefully in his immense hands, like a child carries a nest, as though he were afraid of crushing it between them.
“Farmer Morland’s brewing,” he said, grinning foolishly as he offered it.
Clare drank; it was clean and sweet, pure apple-juice and sugar. She was then confronted by a difficulty with which she had no idea of how to cope: ought she to offer the cup to Calladine after having drunk from it herself?
She had always the uneasy feeling in Calladine’s company that more ceremony was necessary than in her dealings with other human beings, conducted with perfect and unthinking naturalness. But Calladine, who was so grave and courtly, and who looked at her so intently while speaking to her, and again so intently while she replied, seemed to exact a different standard of manners.
In this case, fortunately, he saw her unhappy hesitation, and solved the difficulty for her by stretching out his hand for the cup and draining it right off.
But Gorwyn was watching, and, kindled by the unusualness of the day, winked broadly as Calladine drank, and said heartily, “There’s luck to you both!”
“I hope so,” said Calladine in a low voice. He glanced quickly at Clare; she had either not heard, not noticed, or failed to interpret.
“Admirable, Peter!” he said in a louder tone, as he handed back the cup. “Tell Daisy Morland from me and Miss Warrener, that her father’s brewing, which I suspect she superintends, is first class.”