Looking down, he noticed her bundle, which he had almost rolled into the ditch as he opened the gate; the four corners were knotted in the middle, and under the knot was stuck a bunch of flowers—wallflower, ribes, and a couple of pheasant-eye narcissus.
“Have you left the toll?” he asked, taking it up from the clump of nettles upon which it had fallen.
She nodded.
“I’ll work for myself now.”
A pang of apprehension went through him.
“Where are you going? You won’t go further nor Llangarth, surely?”
“I’m to help Mrs. Powell. Her that keeps the shop by the market. The Vicar of Crishowell knows her, and ’twas him got me the place. I’ll do my best,” added Mary, holding out her hand for the bundle; “let me go on, now.”
“I’ll go with you a bit,” said George.
They took the road together, looking very much like a respectable young peasant family starting on a holiday, but for the fact that the man walked beside the woman, not in front of her, and that there was no baby.