"Little Ansdore--just across the Ditch, in Pedlinge parish. It's a big place, and I like her for taking it on."

"And for any other reason?"

"Lord, no! She isn't at all the sort of woman I admire--a great big strapping wench, the kind this marsh breeds twelve to the acre, like the sheep. Has it ever struck you, Martin, that the women on Romney Marsh, in comparison with the women one's used to and likes, are the same as the Kent sheep in comparison with Southdowns--admirably hardy and suited to the district and all that, but a bit tough and coa.r.s.e-flavoured?"

"I see that farming has already enlarged and refined your stock of similes. I hope you aren't getting tired of it."

"No, not exactly. I'm interested in the place now I manage it without that dolt Lambarde, and Hythe isn't too far for the phaeton if I want to See Life. Besides, I haven't quite got over the thrill of not being in debt and disgrace"--he threw Martin a glance which might have come from a rebellious son to a censorious father. "But sometimes I wish there was less Moated Grange about it all. d.a.m.n it, I'm always alone here! Except when you or your reverend brother come down to see how I'm behaving."

"Why don't you marry again?"

"I don't want to marry. Besides, whom the devil should I marry round here? There's mighty few people of our own cla.s.s about, and those there are seem to have no daughters under forty."

Martin looked at him quizzically.

"Oh yes, you young beast--I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that forty's just the right age for me. You're reminding me that I'm a trifle _pa.s.se_ myself and ought to marry something sere and yellow. But I tell you I don't feel any older than twenty-five--never have, it's my affliction--while you've never been younger than forty in all your life.

It's you who ought to marry middle-age"--and he grimaced at Martin.

--5

Joanna rather enjoyed being the centre of discussion. She had none of the modest shrinking from being talked about which might have affected some young women. She was glad when Martha Tilden or another of the girls brought her any overheard sc.r.a.ps. "Oh, that's what they say, is it?" and she would laugh a big jolly laugh like a boy's.

So far she had enjoyed being "Maaster" of Little Ansdore. It meant a lot of work and a lot of thought and a lot of talking and interference, but Joanna shrank from none of these things. She was healthy and vigorous and intelligent, and was, moreover, quite unhampered by any diffidence about teaching their work to people who had been busy at it before she was born.

Still it was scarcely more than a fortnight since she had taken on the government, and time had probably much to show her yet. She had a moment of depression one morning, rising early as she always must, and pulling aside the flowered curtain that covered her window. The prospect was certainly not one to cheer; even in sunshine the horizons of the marsh were discouraging with their gospel of universal flatness, and this morning the sun was not yet up, and a pale mist was drifting through the willows, thick and congealed above the watercourses, thinner on the grazing lands between them, so that one could see the dim shapes of the sheep moving through it. Even in clear weather only one other dwelling was visible from Little Ansdore, and that was its fellow of Great Ansdore, about half a mile away seawards. The sight of it never failed to make Joanna contemptuous--for Great Ansdore had but fifty acres of land compared with the three hundred of its Little neighbour.

Its Greatness was merely a matter of name and tradition, and had only one material aspect in the presentation to the living of Brodnyx-with-Pedlinge, which had been with Great Ansdore since the pa.s.sing of the monks of Canterbury.

To-day Great Ansdore was only a patch of grey rather denser than its surroundings, and failed to inspire Joanna with her usual sense of gloating. Her eyes were almost sad as she stared out at it, her chin propped on her hands. The window was shut, as every window in every farm and cottage on the marsh was shut at night, though the ague was now little more than a name on the lips of grandfathers. Therefore the room in which two people had slept was rather stuffy, though this in itself would hardly account for Joanna's heaviness, since it was what she naturally expected a bedroom to be in the morning. Such vague sorrow was perplexing and disturbing to her practical emotions; she hurriedly attributed it to "poor father," and the propriety of the sentiment allowed her the relief of a few tears.

Turning back into the room she unb.u.t.toned her turkey-red dressing-gown, preparatory to the business of washing and dressing. Then her eye fell on Ellen still asleep in her little iron bedstead in the corner, and a glow of tenderness pa.s.sed like a lamp over her face. She went across to where her sister slept, and laid her face for a moment beside hers on the pillow. Ellen's breath came regularly from parted lips--she looked adorable cuddled there, with her red cheeks, like an apple in snow.

Joanna, unable to resist the temptation, kissed her and woke her.

"Hullo, Jo--what time is it?" mumbled Ellen sleepily.

"Not time to get up yet. I'm not dressed."

She sat on the edge of the bed, stooping over her sister, and her big rough plaits dangled in the child's face.

"Hullo, Jo--hullo, old Jo," continued the drowsy murmur.

"Go to sleep, you bad girl," said Joanna, forgetting that she herself had roused her.

Ellen was not wide enough awake to have any conflicting views on the subject, and she nestled down again with a deep sigh. For the next ten minutes the room was full of small sounds--the splashing of cold water in the basin, the shuffle of coa.r.s.e linen, the click of fastening stays, the rhythmic swish of a hair brush. Then came two silent minutes, while Joanna knelt with closed eyes and folded hands beside her big, tumbled bed, and said the prayers that her mother had taught her eighteen years ago--word for word as she had said them when she was five, even to the "make me a good girl" at the end. Then she jumped up briskly and tore the sheet off the bed, throwing it with the pillows on the floor, so that Grace Wickens the servant should have no chance of making the bed without stripping it, as was the way of her kind.

Grace was not up yet, of course. Joanna hit her door a resounding thump as she pa.s.sed it on her way to the kitchen. Here the dead ashes had been raked out overnight, and the fire laid according to custom. She lit the fire and put the kettle on to boil; she did not consider it beneath her to perform these menial offices. She knew that every hand was needed for the early morning work of a farm. By the time she had finished both Grace and Martha were in the room, yawning and rubbing their eyes.

"That'll burn up nicely now," said Joanna, surveying the fire. "You'd better put the fish-kettle on too, in case Broadhurst wants hot water for a mash. Bring me out a cup of tea as soon as you can get it ready--I'll be somewhere in the yard."

She put on an old coat of her father's over her black dress, and went out, her nailed boots clattering on the cobble-stones. The men were up--they should have been up an hour now--but no sounds of activity came from the barns. The yard was in stillness, a little mist floating against the walls, and the pervading greyness of the morning seemed to be lit up by the huge blotches of yellow lichen that covered the slated roofs of barns and dwelling--the roofs were all new, having only for a year or two superseded the old roofs of osier thatch, but that queer golden rust had almost hidden their substance, covering them as it covered everything that was left exposed to the salt-thick marsh air.

Joanna stood in the middle of the yard looking keenly round her like a cat, then like a cat she pounced. The interior of the latest built barn was dimly lit by a couple of windows under the roof--the light was just enough to show inside the doorway five motionless figures, seated about on the root-pile and the root-slicing machine. They were Joanna's five farm-men, apparently wrapped in a trance, from which her voice unpleasantly awoke them.

"Here, you--what d'you think you're doing?"

The five figures stiffened with perceptible indignation, but they did not rise from their sitting posture as their mistress advanced--or rather swooped--into their midst. Joanna did not expect this. She paid a man fifteen shillings a week for his labour and made no impossible demands of his prejudices and private habits.

"I've been up an hour," she said, looking round on them, "and here I find all of you sitting like a lot of sacks."

"It's two hours since I've bin out o' my warm bed," said old Stuppeny reproachfully.

"You'd be as much use in it as out, if this is how you spend your time.

No one's been to the pigs yet, and it wants but half an hour to milking."

"We wur setting around for Grace Wickens to bring us out our tea," said Broadhurst.

"You thought maybe she wouldn't know her way across the yard if you was on the other side of it? The tea ain't ready yet--I tell you I haven't had any. It's a fine sight to see a lot of strong, upstanding men lolling around waiting for a cup of tea."

The scorn in Joanna's voice was withering, and a resentful grumble arose, amidst which old Stuppeny's dedication of himself to a new sphere was hoa.r.s.ely discernible. However the men scrambled to their feet and tramped off in various directions; Joanna stopped Fuller, the shepherd, as he went by.

"You'll be taking the wethers to Lydd this morning?"

"Surelye."

"How many are you taking?"

"Maybe two score."

"You can take the lot. It'll save us their grazing money this winter, and we can start fattening the tegs in the spring."

"There's but two score wethers fit for market."

"How d'you mean?"

"The others aun't fatted praaperly."

"Nonsense--you know we never give 'em cake or turnips, so what does it matter?"

"They aun't fit."

"I tell you they'll do well enough. I don't expect to get such prices for them as for that lot you've kept down in the New Innings, but they won't fetch much under, for I declare they're good meat. If we keep them over the winter we'll have to send them inland and pay no end for their grazing--and then maybe the price of mutton ull go down in the Spring."

"It ud be a fool's job to taake them."

"You say that because you don't want to have to fetch them up from the Salt Innings. I tell you you're getting lazy, Fuller."

"My old maaster never called me that."