He roused himself to greater attention when Simon reached the account of his interview with Mr. Dent. Accustomed as he was to more or less traditional behaviour under the traditional circ.u.mstances which govern such lives as his, he fastened at once on the puzzling att.i.tude of the agent.

"It fair beats me what Mr. Dent could think he was at," he observed thoughtfully. "Once you'd settled to quit there was no sense in keeping you hanging on. Best make a job and ha' done wi' it, seems to me.

'Tisn't like Mr. Dent, neither, to carry on in such a fashion. I wonder what made him act so strange?"

Simon wore his original air of injured dignity as he leaned against the cow.

"Nay, I don't know, I'm sure, but he was terble queer! You might ha'

thought he was badly or summat, but he seemed all right. Come to that, he looked as fit as a fiddle and as pleased as a punch! You might ha'

thought he'd had a fortune left him, or the King's Crown!"

"Happen it was some private business," Will said, "and nowt to do wi'

you at all.... What did you think o' doing when you've quit the farm?"

Simon poked the flags harder than ever, and from injured dignity sank to sulks. The sudden pressure of his arm moved the somnolent cow to a sharp kick. When he spoke it was in a surly tone, and with his eyes turned away from Will's.

"I'll have to get a job o' some sort, I reckon, to keep us going. I'm over old for most folk, but I could happen do odds and ends,--fetching milk and siding up, and a bit o' gardening and suchlike. The trouble is the missis won't be able to do for herself before so long. The doctor tellt her to-day she was going blind."

His brother's face filled at once with sympathy and dismay. In that forbidden compartment of his mind where he sometimes ventured to criticise his wife, he saw in a flash how she would take the news. This latest trouble of Sarah's would indeed be the summit of Eliza's triumph.

Poverty Sarah had withstood; blindness she might have mastered, given time; but poverty and blindness combined would deliver her finally into the enemy's hand.

"I never thought it would be as bad as that," he murmured pityingly.

"It's a bad business, is that! ... Didn't doctor say there was anything could be done?"

"There was summat about an operation, but it'll get no forrarder," Simon said. "They fancy things is hardly in Sarah's line."

"If it's bra.s.s that's wanted, you needn't fash over that...." He added more urgently as Simon shook his head, "It'd be queer if I grudged you bra.s.s for a thing like yon!"

"You're right kind," Simon said gratefully, "but it isn't no use. She's that proud, is Sarah, she'll never agree. I doubt she just means to let things slide."

"She's no call, I'm sure, to be proud with me!" Will's voice was almost hot. "I've always been ready any time to stand her friend. Anyway, there's the offer, and she can take it or leave it as best suits her.

If she changes her mind after a while, she won't find as I've altered mine.... But there's no sense in your taking a job and leaving a blind woman to fend for herself. There's nowt for it but Sarah'll have to come to us."

Simon laughed when he said that, a grim, mirthless laugh which made the dog open his sleepless eyes and throw him a searching glance.

"Nay, nay, Will, my lad! It's right good of you, but it wouldn't do. A bonny time you'd have, to be sure, wi' the pair on 'em in t'house! And anyway your missis'd never hear tell o' such a thing, so that fixes it right off."

"It's my own spot, I reckon!" Will spoke with unusual force. "I can do as suits me, I suppose. T'la.s.ses hasn't that much to do they can't see to a blind body, and as for room and suchlike, there'll be plenty soon.

Young Battersby's made it up with our Em, and it's more than time yon Elliman Wilkinson was thinking o' getting wed. He's been going with our Sally a terble long while, though he and Mary Phyllis seem mighty throng just now. Anyway, there'll be a corner for Sarah right enough,--ay, and for you an' all."

But Simon shook his head again, and stood up straight and took his arm off the back of the cow.

"There'd be murder, I doubt," he said quite simply, and this time he did not laugh. "There's bad blood between they two women as n.o.bbut death'll cure. Nay, I thank ye right enough, Will, but yon horse won't pull....

"I mun get a job, that's all," he went on quickly, before Will could speak again, "and some sort of a spot where t'neighbours'll look to the missis while I'm off. I'll see t'agent agen and try to ram into him as I mean to gang, and if you hear of owt going to suit, you'll likely let me know?"

Will nodded but did not answer because of approaching steps, and they stood silently waiting until the cowman showed at the door. At once the deep symphony of the hungry broke from the cattle at sight of their servant with his swill. The quiet picture, almost as still as if painted on the wall, upheaved suddenly into a chaos of rocking, bellowing beasts. The great heads tugged at their yokes, the great eyes pleaded and rolled. The big organ-notes of complaint and desire chorded and jarred, dropping into satisfied silence as the man pa.s.sed from stall to stall. Will jerked his head after him as he went out at the far door, and said that he would be leaving before so long.

"Eh? Taylor, did ye say?" Simon stared, for the man had been at Blindbeck for years. "What's amiss?"

"Nay, there's nowt wrong between us, if you mean that. But his wife's father's had a stroke, and wants him to take over for him at Drigg.

News didn't come till I was off this morning, or I might ha' looked round for somebody while I was in t'town."

Simon began a fresh violent poking with his ancient stick. "You'll ha'

somebody in your eye, likely?" he enquired. "There'll be plenty glad o'

the job."

"Oh, ay, but it's n.o.bbut a weary business learning folk your ways." He glanced at his brother a moment, and then looked shyly away. "If you're really after a shop, Simon, what's wrong wi' it for yourself?"

The painful colour came into the other's averted face. He poked so recklessly that he poked the dog, who arose with an offended growl.

"Nay, it's charity, that's what it is! I'm over old.... You know as well as me I'd never get such a spot anywheres else."

"You know the place, and you're a rare hand wi' stock. I could trust you same as I could myself."

"I'm over old," Simon demurred again, "and done to boot. I'd not be worth the bra.s.s."

"We've plenty o' help on the place," Will said. "It'd be worth it just to have you about. Nigh the same as having a vet on t'spot!" he added jokingly, trying to flatter him into acquiescence. "I'd be main glad for my own sake," he went on, his face grave again and slightly wistful.

"There's times I fair ache for a crack wi' somebody o' my own. Women is n.o.bbut women, when all's said and done, and lads is like to think they know a deal better than their dad.... Ay, well, you can think it over and let me know," he finished, in a disappointed tone.

Simon poked for a while longer, and succeeded in poking the cow as well as the dog. He was fighting hard with his pride as he sc.r.a.ped busily at the flags. The tie of blood pulled him, as well as the whole atmosphere of the prosperous place. He knew in his heart that he was never so happy as when he was with his brother, never so good a man as when he was preaching in Will's shippons. As for pride, that would have to go by the board sooner or later; indeed, who would say that he had any right to it, even now? He made up his mind at last on a sudden impulse, lifting his head with a hasty jerk.

"I've had enough o' thinking things over, thank ye all the same. I'll be main glad o' the job, Will, and that's the truth...." He sank back instantly, however, and fell to poking again. "Folk'll have plenty to say, though, I reckon," he added bitterly, "when they hear as I'm hired man to my younger brother!"

"They've always a deal to say, so what's the odds? As for younger and older, there isn't a deal to that when you get up in years.... There's a good cottage across t'road," he went on eagerly, bringing up reinforcements before Simon should retire. "It's handy for t'stock, and there's a garden and orchard as well. La.s.ses could see to Sarah, you'll think on, if she's that closer. There's berry-bushes in t'garden and a deal besides...."

Simon was busy shaking his head and saying he wasn't worth it and that he was over old, but all the time he was listening with interest and even pleasure to Will's talk. Milking had now begun, and already, as the levers swung back and forwards over the cattle's heads, he found himself looking about the shippon with a possessive eye. Even in these few moments, life had taken a turn for the Thornthwaite of the desolate marsh farm. Already his back felt straighter, his eye brighter, his brain more alive. The drawbacks of the proposed position began to recede before the many advantages it had to offer. It was true, of course, that he would be his brother's hired man, but it was equally true that he was the master's brother, too. To all intents and purposes he would be master himself,--that is to say, when Eliza wasn't about!

Will's cottages were good, like everything else of Will's, and the la.s.ses could see to Sarah, as he said. For himself there would be the constant interest and stimulant of a big farm, as well as the mental relief of a steady weekly wage. He felt almost excited about it as they crossed the yard, making for Taylor's cottage over the road. He tried not to think of what Sarah might say when she heard the news, still less of what Mrs. Will would most certainly say. He felt equal to both of them in his present spirited mood, and even tried to convince himself that in time they would make friends.

As they stood looking at Taylor's cottage and Taylor's gooseberry bushes and canes, Will suddenly asked his brother whether there was any news of Geordie. And Simon, when he had given the old answer that there was no news that was worth crossing the road to hear, turned his face away in the direction of Taylor's hens, and enquired whether there was any news of Jim.

"There's been none for a sight o' years now," Will answered sadly, leaning on the wall. "Eliza wrote him a letter as put his back up, and he's never sent us a line since. He always set a deal more by you and your missis than he ever did by us. I'd ha' stood his friend, poor lad, if he'd ha' let me, but he always took it I was agen him, too."

There was silence between them for a while, and then,--"Eh, well, you've a mort of others to fill his place!" Simon sighed, watching a well-built lad swing whistling across the yard.

Will raised himself from the wall, and watched him, too.

"Ay, but I'd n.o.bbut the one eldest son!" was all he said.

V

Sally led her aunt to the grand but unused parlour in which so many expensive and handsome things were doomed to spend their lives. There was a piano, of course, which none of the Blindbeck folk knew how to play, in spite of Eliza's conviction that the gift was included in the price. A Chippendale bookcase made a prison for strange books never opened and never named, and the shut doors of a cabinet kept watch and ward over some lovely china and gla.s.s. There was a satin-wood table with a velvet sheen, whose polished mirror never reflected a laughing human face. There was an American rocking-chair, poised like a floating bird, with cushions filled with the finest down ever drawn from an heirloom of a feather-bed. Sarah would not have taken the rocking-chair, as a rule; she would have thought herself either too humble or too proud. But to-day she went to it as a matter of course, because of the false pomp that she had drawn to herself like a stolen royal robe. With a sigh of relief that was half physical and half mental, she let herself gently down, dropped her rusty bonnet against the silk, and peacefully closed her eyes.

Sally stood looking at her with an expression of mingled pity, curiosity and awe. She had pitied her often enough before, but she had never before seen her through the slightest veil of romance. Sometimes, indeed, the tale of the damaged wedding-day had touched her imagination like the scent of a bruised flower, but it was so faint and far-off that it pa.s.sed again like a breath. To-day, however, she had that sudden sense of exquisite beauty in the old, which all must feel who see in them the fragile storehouses of life. The old woman had known so much that she would never know, looked on a different world with utterly different eyes. There was romance in the thought of the dead she had seen and spoken to and laughed with and touched and loved. And even now, with the flower of her life apparently over and withered back again to its earth, this sudden splendour of Geordie had blossomed for her at the end.