Still she did not speak, and quite suddenly he was wroth, vexed by her mask-like face and the sudden diminishing of his hope.

"Losh, woman!" he cried angrily. "You look half daft! Is yon lad of ours coming, or is he not? Is it truth you're telling me, or a pack o'

lies?"

She stirred then, moved by the cheated sound in his angry voice. She gave a sigh. The fooling of Eliza had been utterly great and glorious, but it had come to an end. "It was just lies," she heard herself saying in a pa.s.sionless tone, and then with a last twinge of regret, she sighed again.

Eliza's scream of "I knew it! I knew it!" merged in the chorus of exclamation from the group about the door. Will said nothing, fixing his sister-in-law with his kindly gaze, but Simon fell back muttering, and staring as if afraid. He wondered, looking at her unemotional face, whether the trouble about her eyes was beginning to touch her brain.

She herself had said there was no knowing what blind weather might possibly do, no telling what a blind body's brain might someday suddenly breed....

He came back to the consciousness of Eliza's voice as a man from the dead hears the roar of life as he returns.

"I wonder you're not struck down where you stand, Sarah Thornthet! I wonder you're not liggin' dead on t'floor! But you'll be punished for it, right enough; you'll be paid for it, never fear! You'll see, summat'll happen to you afore so long,--I shouldn't wonder if it happened before morn! Like enough, the next news as we have o'

Geordie'll be as he's dead or drowned.... I'll serve you a slap on t'lugs, Will, if you can't shape to let me be!"

It was Sally who saved the situation for the second time that day.

"Fetch the trap, Uncle Simon, and look sharp about it!" she commanded smartly, "and you come and set down, Aunt Sarah, until it's round. Let her be, can't you!" she added roughly, flinging round on her mother.

"She's that tired and put out she don't know what's she's at."

She shook her fist at the window, and the faces disappeared like morning frost. Then she turned on the others and ordered them out, too.

"You'd best be getting about your business!" she commanded them, hand on hip. "You should be in t'dairy this minute, Mary Phyllis,--you know that as well as me. I'd think shame o' myself, Mr. and Mrs. Addison, to be helping other folks' wi' their weekly wash! Same to you, Elliman Wilkinson, and a bit over, come to that! You're not one o' the family yet by a long chalk, my lad; nay, nor like to be, neither, if you don't see to mend your ways!"

Eliza still lingered, however, loth that anything should be left unsaid, but Sally ushered her resolutely to the door. She protested to the last inch, and the hand that had been denied judgment on Sarah flew up and slapped Sally's face. The girl looked at her with scornful eyes.

"Ay, you can't keep your hands off folk, can you?" she said bitterly.

"You never could. I remember Jim saying he fair hated you for it when we were bairns. That was why he always liked Aunt Sarah a deal better than he liked you!"

"You'll find other folk free wi' their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you're that free wi' your impident tongue! Yon fool of an Elliman'll stand no nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft! Not that he wants any truck wi' you at all, as far as I can see. It's Mary Phyllis he can't take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither. She was always a sight better-looking than you, and she's younger, by a deal. You're that old and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just by being along wi't in t'house! Nay, I reckon you can put wedding and suchlike out o' your head as soon as you like! _You'll_ never have a house of your own, or a man to put in it; and as for bairns o' your own to slap, why, you'll never have none o' _them_...!"

She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she was reluctant to attack. In the few pauses that she allowed herself she could hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest, she waddled heavily away along the pa.s.sage. She was in the dairy a minute later, and saw through the window the brothers yoking the old horse. Through the window, too, she caught sc.r.a.ps of their talk, and strained her ears eagerly to catch its bent. As if by magic the anger left her face, and a little smile grew happily on her lips. She even hummed a little tune to herself, as she watched and listened, leaning against the frame....

The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was so laden with words that it would hold no more. Sarah groped her way to the rocking-chair and sat down again to wait. Sally went to the window, and stared miserably into the yard. So they waited together until they heard the rattle of the wheels along the stones....

VII

Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out. Eliza had still to give it its finishing touch. The lately routed audience must have been conscious of this, for they a.s.sembled again in order to watch the Thornthwaites take their leave. As a rule, the Simons simply faded away, unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will. They were not welcome when they came, and they were not lamented when they went away.

But to-day Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd, arousing unwilling admiration and even respect. The Addisons, for instance, though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime which they would never have had the courage to commit themselves. Even Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah's psychology seemed possibly worthy of study, after all. The main motive with all, however, was a sneaking hope that, on some ground or another, the opponents might go for each other again.

As if by accident, therefore, they drifted out of the house, and on Sarah's appearance were to be found sitting on rails or pig-sty walls, or leaning in graceful att.i.tudes against the porch. Sarah could not see them, but Simon could, and divided a scowl of dislike amongst the lot.

The Thornthwaites were actually settled in the trap when Eliza came bustling after them into the yard.

It was such a different Eliza, however, that at first it looked as if the audience were to be cheated of their scene. The virulent harridan of ten minutes ago had vanished as if she had never been. This Eliza was hearty, smiling, serene, the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued mocker which Sarah detested most. Even her hair and dress, lately dishevelled by rage, were now as tidy and sleek as the fur of a well-brushed cat.

She came to a halt close beside the wheel, and Sarah started when she heard her speak.

"So you're off, are you, Sarah? Ay, well, you'll be best at home! I reckon our Sally's right, and you're not yourself at all. Mind and see doctor again, first thing as ever you can. It's a bad sign, they say, to go making up fancy tales. Folks as get telling lies is framing for softening of the brain."

Will looked back with a frown as he hurried on to open the gate.

"We've had enough o' that, missis!" he called sharply. "Just you let Sarah be!"

Mrs. Will tossed her head, but managed to preserve her compa.s.sionate air.

"Losh, master!" she reproached him loudly. "You've no call to speak so sharp. I'm meaning kindly enough by poor Sarah here, I'm sure! She's welcome to tell lies till they turn her black in the face, but it isn't healthy for her, all the same. I shouldn't like to see poor Sarah in Garland's Asylum, or some such spot as yon. Ay, well, we'll be having her close at hand afore so long, and then we can do our best for her ourselves!"

Sarah started a second time when she said that, and the pig-sty audience brightened and p.r.i.c.ked its ears. Simon muttered an oath and pulled at the horse until it sidled and backed, forcing the subtle tormentor to retreat.

"You stand back, missis," he cried angrily, waving a threatening whip, "and take your long tongue with you, or it'll be tripping us in t'road!"

There was a burst of laughter at this show of wit, and Eliza flared instantly into open war. She raised her voice after the departing pair, stepping back heavily upon Elliman's feet.

"You'll have to speak different from that, Mr. Thornthet," she called shrilly, "if you're coming to Blindbeck to act as our hired man!"

The laughter broke out again, and then stopped, cut short. Simon, red to the ears, raised the whip violently above the horse's back, but it was checked before it descended by Sarah's outstretched hand.

"Bide a minute, Simon," she said quietly. "Just hold on. What's Eliza meaning to say by that?"

Simon looked helplessly about him, noting the interested gaping faces on all sides. "Ax me on t'road," he said desperately, yearning to get away. "It's time we were getting on, missis. Ax me on t'road!"

"Nay, ax him now, and ha' done wi' it, Sarah!" Eliza jeered, advancing again. "Or ax me if you want, and I'll tell you mighty sharp! Likely you've been wondering what's to come o' you when you leave the farm?

Ay, well, our cowman's job is going begging at present, and I hear your master's thinking o' taking it on."

There was a pause after that, in which even the pig-sty audience was hushed as mice, and the fretting horse itself was suddenly still. Those nearest to Sarah heard her give a sigh, the same little sigh with which she had loosed her hold on the Parlour Dream. The next moment Simon had thankfully eased the reins, and the trap went creaking and jolting out of the still yard....

Eliza watched it triumphantly until the very last, and then, bursting into a laugh, turned expectantly for applause. But for once her usually appreciative audience failed her of her due. They avoided her eyes and looked at their boots, or leaned over the pig-sty walls and pretended a pa.s.sionate interest in the pigs. The Addisons, in whom Christian charity was apt to rise and fall like a turned-on jet, murmured tepid thanks for their entertainment, and hurried away. Even the smug cousin refused to play up to Eliza for once, partly because of a latent fineness of feeling which she had hurt, but chiefly because she had trodden on his toes. Turning his back determinedly upon Mary Phyllis, he bent to whisper something in Sally's ear. She hesitated a moment, lifting her eyes to his sobered face, and then followed him slowly towards the track across the fields.

VIII

Outside the farmyard wall Sarah again put out a hand to Simon's arm.

"Yon's Taylor's spot, isn't it?" she enquired, as the cottage came up.

"Just hold on a minute, and let me see."

He obeyed, watching her nervously as she bent and peered at the house, and wondering uneasily what she was about. She knew the house well enough, both inside and out, so she could not be stopping to look at it just for that. She must be trying to form some impression of it that was wholly new, perhaps picturing it as it would be when she had come to live in it herself.

When he found that she did not speak, he began to offer clipped remarks, anxiously pointing out objects that she was quite unable to see.

"It's a good house, missis.... You'll remember it's a tidy spot.

There's a fairish garden for cabbishes and the like, and a bit of a drying-ground as well. As for berry-bushes, there's gooseberry and black currant and red ... and danged if there isn't a few rasps over at far side wall an' all!"

Sarah looked away from the house the moment he started to speak, as if some spell were broken by the sound of his voice. "Ay," she said, with a total lack of interest, and staring ahead.... "Now, master, we'd best get on."