"Exactly. If he was kept quiet. Now John has had a stroke, Mary. He's a big heavy man and easily upset. He isn't clever like you." Mary started at the compliment. "He'll find it very hard to get used to the new ways."
"But this won't last long. We're getting along very nicely and the men are bound to come in sooner or later. Things will be just the same again."
"You know that isn't true," said Sarah quietly. "Things will never be the same again. You're deceiving yourself, Mary. You don't like the idea of giving up farming because you're still young and have had a hard time, I know, to set things right at Anderby. But if you keep on, this will kill John."
"Why, what nonsense! John's quite a young man. What's fifty-two? What should we do, retiring at our age? Settle down here in Market Burton? That would kill him far more likely. Why, the strike will be over before harvest is in. I never heard such a lot of fuss about nothing in my life!"
"And if the strike is over, what then, Mary?" Sarah smiled down at her strangely. "What about John in the months to come, when every little hitch will seem to mean another strike, and there are new rules and regulations to deal with, and union officials and all that?"
"Yes, but there's me. I can deal with them. John's had hardly anything to do with all this business."
What right had Sarah to raise all the tormenting doubts and suggestions of the last few days, just when Mary had buried them so carefully deep down in her mind? It was insufferable interference!
"While John is at Anderby, he will always be among it all. You can't alter that, Mary."
"Oh, of course I know you want to get him back here! You'd like him under your thumb again, as he was at Littledale. You've always been jealous of me, and thought I shouldn't appreciate him properly!"
"Well, Mary, and if I have? Do you appreciate him properly?"