"Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but he was that set on you he didn't mind. He used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn't he,--same as Geordie did? It was never his mother he fetched 'em for; 'twas always you."

"Eliza never had no need o' fairings, wi' all she had at her back!"

Sarah stood up sharply and began to grope about for her mantle and gloves. "You're bringing things back just to coax me about yon bra.s.s!"

she added, as May came forward to help.... "Your father's none so well, I'm sorry to hear?"

"He hasn't been himself for a while now, and he's getting worse. I doubt he's going down the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!"

"Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we wouldn't wish for owt else.

But it'll be rare an' lonely for you wi'out him, all the same."

"I'm used to being alone, though I can't say it's very grand.... You'll have to let me come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet," she added, with a cheerful laugh.

"We're over old for the likes o' you. You want friends of your own age to keep you lively-like."

"I'm not so young myself, if it comes to that," May said. "And I don't know as I ever had a real friend, barring Geordie-an'-Jim."

"That's enough o' the two on 'em!" Sarah snarled, as they went out.

"Geordie's been a bonny friend to you, anyway,--he has that! We'd best be getting about our business. Talking o' things as is dead and gone won't make us any more lish."

"Simon'll be bothered about my eyes," she said presently, as they turned towards the shops. "It's a deal worse having to tell him than to put up wi' it myself."

"Happen you'd like me to tell him for you?" May suggested, but Sarah shook her head.

"Nay, you'd do it right enough, I'm sure," she said kindly, "but it'd come best from me. You've enough o' your own to fash you, wi'out that.

Married folk mun do their own telling over things like yon...."

V

But though Sarah had held to the telling of Simon, she seemed in no hurry to break the dismal news. All morning she clung to May, as if they drew together as a matter of course, and May was glad to have her, not only because she was old and needed help, but because of the tie between them which had never been loosed. It was true that they had seen little of each other of late years, but it had only needed the talk in the doctor's house to draw them together again. The dwelling upon a lost hope may sometimes make the impossible possible and the dead live, if only for a s.p.a.ce. The two of them had recreated Geordie in the quiet room, so that his mother had seen him plain before her darkened eyes, and his sweetheart had felt his kisses on her lips.

So all morning they stayed together, even though they did not speak of him again, because while they were together the glamour persisted and the dream remained. Just as one name had robbed them that day, though they did not know it, so another name sweetened everything for them, and for a little s.p.a.ce made them rich. Things might so easily have been as they wished that it seemed as if even now just a little determination might twist them into shape. In the ordinary course of events, and with ever such an ordinary share of luck, Geordie and May should have been married long ago, with a home of their own to offer the old folk at the last. Even now, so it seemed, Geordie might be somewhere in the street, in the midst of that crowd of healthy youth, st.u.r.dy manhood and wiry age. Instinctively, as they came out of each shop, they looked to find him the centre of some chaffing group, the laughing, handsome, witty centre, as he had always been. He would break away when he saw them to ask his old mother how she did, and suddenly the greatest and best of all happenings would have happened, and they would have heard the miracle of his speech....

This was the spell they wove for each other, making the day brighter and the world kinder, and helping them to laugh at things which otherwise would have been too light to stir their hearts. Sarah's shopping was dull and soon finished, but May had an exciting list, and seemed constantly in need of help. The old woman actually enjoyed herself as she peered at stockings and linen b.u.t.tons, and nipped longcloth and serge between her finger and thumb. It might have been wedding-gear they were after, she told May, with a grim chuckle, and May laughed and sighed, thinking of a bottom drawer at home that had been locked for many years. The salesman laughed, too, and asked Sarah which of them it was that was thinking of getting wed, and Sarah, with all her arduous married life behind her, was yet as pleased as a young girl. She was a shrewd marketer, even now, in spite of her sight, especially in the food-shops, where one nose can often be quite as useful as a pair of eyes; while, as for pots and pans, she knew them as a hen knows her chickens and a shepherd his sheep.

They had many a chat over a counter, making and receiving enquiries about friends, opening their mouths at any lively piece of news, and pursing them sympathetically when there was trouble around the door. In the low shops with the new windows in their old walls and new slates on their bowed roofs, little, low doorways stooping for their heads, little, worn doorsteps watching for their feet, they heard many a hint of the romance of evolving or changing trade, many a precious historic touch that would never find its way into print. You cannot put your ear to the past anywhere but in the old places where men are born to their trades, where they know the customer's pedigree as the customer knows theirs, and where everybody has time for the human as well as the commercial exchange. Only there can you learn in the s.p.a.ce of an hour wonderful things about drapery and furniture and hardware and tea, and feel the glamour of the whole budding and fruit-bearing earth come into the florist's, and the atmosphere of old posting-inns into the pot-shop with the clink of gla.s.s. And no man who is born to his trade is ever a cobbler who may not look beyond his last. The potman will tell you where to order a stylish suit of clothes, and the florist instruct you how to smoke a ham. And every one of them will tell you, with or without their knowing it, what they have learned of human nature and the hope of eternity in their quiet little town, and with what eyes they have looked abroad upon the world.

All that morning the tides of life swept against Sarah and her friend as they went about the streets,--tides of humanity and sympathy, memory and custom,--all the currents that move in the air and the blood and the brain when a hand is shaken or a friendly voice is heard. It was life at its fullest as it is known to the northern farmer and his kind, the public recognition in a given place of the great and intimate system of which he is a part. The dumb beasts had their place in it, too,--perhaps the chief place,--and though only the wise dogs and the cobby, half-clipped horses were there in the flesh, the all-absorbing stock was never absent from the mind. Into every conversation before so long some grand bull-calf or pedigree shearling was sure to push its way. Moving among the warm human tides was like moving in a flood, while, overhead, low almost as the roofs, the mist drifted and the sky drooped. Seven miles away, the sands lay bare as a hand, as if never in any aeon of time would the sea return.

Sarah and May had their dinner together in a cafe overlooking one of the steep streets, and, choosing a table by one of the windows, so that they could look out, spread their parcels about them, and discussed their bargains and their mistakes. They were still happy, as happiness went for them in those days, because of the miracle that seemed always possible down in the street. Folks in plenty were coming and going on the narrow stair, and as each head rose above the floor of the room in which they sat, they felt a thrill of antic.i.p.ation that was yet too slight to bring disappointment in its train. May, perhaps, was slightly puzzled by the persistence of the feeling in the air, but Sarah was well used, like all who are old, to the strange reality of these glamour-days that are fashioned from the past.

They had their heads together over a new-fangled floor-cloth when the ubiquitous stranger came quietly up the stairs; and they were so absorbed, and Sarah was so exuberant in her wrath, that he had time to look about him before the final word was said. There was no room for him, he saw, except at the table where they sat, and presently, though rather uncertainly, he advanced a foot. If they had looked at him, he would have gone forward at once, but when they lifted their eyes it was only to turn them towards the window and the street. The little action seemed somehow to shut him out, and, drawing back almost guiltily, he found a seat for himself in the adjoining room. May looked round as he did so, just as though somebody had called, and stared intently at the place where he had been.

He could still see them, however, from where he sat, and he noticed many things about them as he watched. He noticed, for instance, how strong and capable May looked, like a woman who had long since taken her life in her hands and ruled it well. He noticed her good clothes and Sarah's shabby ones, and that the mult.i.tudinous parcels were most of them May's.

He noticed the shake which Time, in spite of her, had put into Sarah's hands, and was puzzled by the groping manner in which she used her fork.

He noticed that the two of them ate little and that without much heart, and that always they turned their faces towards the street. And finally he noticed how Sarah, in the midst of her talk, went suddenly rigid as a woman came into the room.

She was a big woman over sixty years of age, with smooth, high-coloured cheeks and thick dark hair that was still a long way from turning white.

Her face said plainly that she had had a full, comfortable, healthy life, with plenty to interest her and little to fret. Her brown eyes, which had been beautiful in youth, had kept their expression of self-satisfaction wholly undisturbed. She looked, indeed, what she was, the mother of a big family, the mistress of a good-cla.s.s farm, and the wife of a man whose banking-account had long since ceased to keep him awake at nights. She wore a black hat and a black plush coat, and round her shoulders was a big fur wrap. In a kid-gloved hand she carried a m.u.f.f and a silver-mounted bag, and May, looking down, saw patent-toed boots showing beneath her neat, black skirt. Sarah was sure of them, too, though she could not see them. It was not with her physical eye that she looked at Eliza of Blindbeck, Simon's brother's wife.

She, too, had paused in the doorway, looking for a place, but as soon as she saw the two in the window, she advanced at once. As she pa.s.sed she spoke to several people in a noisy, hearty voice, that seemed to have a bl.u.s.tering quality somewhere at its back. By the time she had reached Sarah's table and come to a stop, the man in the other room noticed that Sarah had suddenly grown small....

"Eh, now, if I haven't been seeking you all over the shop!" Eliza exclaimed. "Will had it you wanted me most particular, so I've been looking out. I couldn't find you, though, whatever I did. I never see folks so set on keeping out of the road!"

Sarah still continued to look as though she had shrunk. Even her voice seemed to have grown less. It sounded far off and rather prim.

"Nay, I don't know as I did, thank ye," was all she said. "Will mun ha'

gitten hold o' the wrong end o' the stick."

Eliza looked at her with the little smile which the sight of Sarah always brought to her lips. She pulled a chair towards her and collapsed into it without waiting to be asked.

"Ay, well, that's queer, to be sure! Will's no more muddled than most on market-day, as a rule. I made sure you were wanting me right off the reel, from what he said."

May explained nervously that she had come to Sarah's a.s.sistance instead.

Eliza always made her nervous, because she never seemed to know she was in the room. "There wasn't that much to do," she finished hurriedly, stumbling over her words. "It's a pity Mr. Thornthwaite set you looking her up."

"Nay, I don't know.... I'd have been glad to do anything, I'm sure!"

Eliza spoke in her heartiest tones, so that everybody could hear.

"n.o.body can say I'm one as can't be bothered to lend a hand. I reckon me and Will have done as much in that line as most." She looked at Sarah again, the smile growing on her lips.... "You'll not mind me sitting down with you, I suppose?"

"We're through, thank ye. We're just off." Sarah pushed her plate from her, and began to fumble shakily for the thread gloves. May looked across at her with a troubled glance, and gathered the parcels together, ready to move. Eliza, however, had no intention of allowing them to escape so soon.

"You're surely not thinking o' stirring yet!" she exclaimed, in a hurt tone. "What, we've barely as much as pa.s.sed the time o' day! You'll not grudge me a word or two after all my trouble, and me that throng wi'

shopping I didn't know where to turn. Will was as full of nods and becks as a row o' poppies in a wind, and I've been fair aching ever since to know what he could be at."

She turned in her seat to call a waitress, and ordered a substantial meal; after which, throwing back her fur, she leaned her arms on the table, and resumed her smile. Everybody in the place knew what Eliza Thornthwaite was having for her dinner, and here and there they were saying to each other, "They do themselves rarely at Blindbeck....

There's a deal o' bra.s.s to Blindbeck ... ay, Blindbeck's plenty o'

bra.s.s!" Eliza knew what they were saying, of course, and felt unctuously pleased; but May's heart swelled as she looked at Sarah's scanty, unfinished repast and the thin thread gloves that she was smoothing over her wrists. Eliza had taken off her own gloves by now, showing thick fingers and short nails. They were trapped in the alcove as long as she sat at the table-end, because of her big, overflowing figure which shut the two of them in. They would have to push their way past her if they wanted to get out, and Sarah would never as much as touch her with the end of a ten-foot pole.

"I'd ha' done what I could, I'm sure," Eliza was busy telling them again. "I'd never say no to folks as can't help themselves. But there,--I needn't ha' bothered about it,--you're as right as rain. Will had it you were off to t'doctor's, but I made sure he was wrong. I haven't seen you looking so well for a month o' Sundays, and that's the truth."

She raised herself as the waitress set a steaming plate in front of her, and stared at it critically.

"Eh, well, you've not that much to bother you, have you?" she added kindly, setting to work,--"n.o.bbut Simon to see to, and just that bit of a spot? 'Tisn't the same for you as it is for me, with that great place of our'n on my hands, and the house fair crowded out."

Sarah did not speak, but she saw, as she was intended to see, a picture of the good farm where Mrs. Will reigned supreme, of her sons and daughters and their friends, and her hired la.s.ses and lads; and after that another picture of her own empty home, where no youthful steps sounded along the floors, and no vibrant young voices rang against the roof. The pictures hurt her, as they were meant to do, as well as the cheerful comment upon her looks. Eliza always a.s.sumed that you were as strong as a horse, even if you lay on your death-bed at her feet.

"I never heard tell you were badly," she persisted, fixing her eyes on Sarah's face, which looked like parchment against the misty pane, "and surely to goodness I'd be more like to know than Will?"

"I'll do, thank ye. I'm right enough," Sarah said stiffly, forced into speech at last; and Eliza laughed victoriously and returned to her food with zest.

"You've always been rarely strong, as far as I can think on. I never heard tell as you ailed anything in your life. You were always a rare hand wi' a knife and fork an' all!" she finished, laughing again.

"Will's a bonny fool to go scaring folk wi' such-like tales."

"Yes, but we _did_ go to the doctor's!" May broke out warmly, goaded into speech. "Mrs. Thornthwaite's bothered with her eyes."