Mellis came back from the woods as he was driving the stake into the ground under the gateway. He had rolled his cassock over his girdle, and turned the sleeves up nearly to his shoulders, so that the muscles showed. And he looked hot and masterful and triumphant as he turned to show her how his bridge worked.
“Well done, Martin Valliant. Let the beam down and I will come over and see if I am strong enough to raise it.”
He lowered the beam, and she walked over to him.
“Now I understand why you did not want to build a bridge that would carry a horse. Let me see what I can do. I might have to play bridgeward some day.”
She found that she was strong enough to raise the beam, for she was tall and lithe, with a beautiful breadth across the bosom.
Martin’s eyes shone.
“Now I must build you a gate,” he said, “a gate that nothing but a cannon shot can shiver.”
It took him the rest of the morning to pull down one of the outhouses, sort out his timber, and get it cut to size and shape. He had dragged the charred mass of the old gate from its bed of nettles, and had stripped it of its great iron hinges when Mellis came to call him to dinner.
“I have done famously: hot meat, and new bread, and a dish of herbs. I found two old iron pots in the cellar, and I am quite kitchen proud.”
Martin was loth to leave the work. He was hunting for the smith’s nails that had fallen out of the burned wood of the old gate; they were more precious than pieces of gold. She pretended to be hurt by his lack of gratitude.