Mrs. Will lifted her own sharply for a fresh stare at the defenceless face.

"Eh, now, you don't say so!" she exclaimed cheerfully, with a quite uninterested air. "It's bad hearing, is that, but they look right enough, I'm sure."

"They're bad, all the same!" May answered indignantly, on the verge of tears. "Doctor says she ought to have an operation right off."

There was a little pause after the dread word operation, poignant in every cla.s.s, but especially so in this. Even Mrs. Will was shocked momentarily into quiet. Her fork stayed arrested in mid-air, half-way to her mouth.

"Well, I never!" she observed at last, withdrawing her startled gaze.

"Eh, now, I never did!" She set to work again at her food like a machine that has been stopped for a second by an outside hand. "I don't hold much by operations myself," she went on presently, growing fluent again. "I doubt they're never no use. They're luxuries for rich folk, anyway, seems to me, same as servants and motor-cars and the like. But you'll likely be asking somebody for a hospital ticket, so as you needn't pay?"

"Nay, I think not," Sarah said calmly, though her hands gripped each other in her threadbare lap.

"You'll never go wasting your own bra.s.s on a job like yon!"

"Nay, nor that, neither."

"You'll borrow it, likely?" A slyness came into her voice. She peered at Sarah over her cup.

"Nay."

"Ay, well, no matter where it come from, it would n.o.bbut be money thrown away. You're an old body now, Sarah, and folk don't mend that much when they get to your age. It's real lucky you've only that small spot, as I said, and neither chick nor child to fret after you when you've gone."

Sarah stood up suddenly when she said that, trying to focus her eyes on Eliza's face. She stood very stiff and straight, as if she were all of one piece from feet to crown. A sudden notion came to May that, if she had thrown off the shabby black cloak, a column of fierce flame would have shot up towards the roof....

"I'll be saying good day, Eliza," was all she said, however, and moved, but stopped because the other's skirts still lay before her feet. Mrs.

Will leaned back in her chair, looking up at her, and smiled.

"Nay, now, Sarah, what's the sense o' getting mad? I'm real sorry about your eyes, but you'd ha' done better to tell me right off. As for saying good day and such-like so mighty grand, you know as well as me we're looking to see you at Blindbeck this afternoon." She paused a moment, and then her voice rose on an insolent note. "Ay, and you know well enough what you're coming for an' all!"

"Nay, then, I don't." Sarah seemed actually to grow in height. She looked down at her quietly. "Nay, I don't."

"That's a lie, if I say it to all Witham!" Eliza cried in furious tones.

Battle was really joined now, and her voice, strident and loud, carried into and disturbed even the street. Those near turned about openly to listen, or listened eagerly without turning. The man in the adjoining room got up and came to the door. May stood poised for flight, looking from one to the other of the warriors with dismay.

"You're leaving Sandholes, aren't you?" Eliza asked, exactly as if she were addressing somebody over the road,--"leaving because you're broke!

You're coming to Blindbeck to beg of Blindbeck, just as you've begged of us before. Simon told Will, if you want to know, and Will told me, and every farmer at market'll be taking it home by now...."

There was a murmur of discomfort and disapproval all over the room, and then somebody in a corner whispered something and laughed. May roused herself and pushed her way past Eliza with burning cheeks; but Sarah stood perfectly still, looking down at the blurred presence sneering from her chair.

"Ay, we're quitting right enough," she answered her in a pa.s.sionless voice. "We're finished, Simon and me, and there's nowt for it but to give up. But I've gitten one thing to be thankful for, when everything's said and done ... I'm that bad wi' my eyes I can't rightly see your face...."

The person who had laughed before laughed again, and faint t.i.tters broke out on every side. Sarah, however, did not seem to hear. She lifted a thread-gloved hand and pointed at Eliza's skirts. "Happen you'll shift yon gown o' yours, Eliza Thornthet?" she added, coolly. "I've a deal o'

dirt on my shoes as I reckon you won't want."

The laughter Was unrestrained now, and Eliza flushed angrily as she dragged her skirts reluctantly out of the way. From the corner of a raging eye she observed the elaborate care with which Sarah went by.

"We'll finish our bit of a crack at Blindbeck!" she called after her with a coa.r.s.e laugh; but Sarah and May were already on the stairs. The stranger put out his hand to them as they brushed past, but in their anger and concentration they did not notice that he was there. Even if he had spoken to them they would not have heard him, for through the cloud of hate which Eliza had cast about them the voice of the Trump itself would never have found a way. He stood aside, therefore, and let them go, but presently, as if unable to help himself, he followed them into the street. They were soon cheerful again, he noticed, walking at their heels, as the charm which they had for each other rea.s.serted its power. Once, indeed, as they looked in at a window, they even laughed, and he frowned sharply and felt aggrieved. When they laughed again he turned on his heel with an angry movement, and flung away down the nearest street. He could not know that it was only in their memories they ever really laughed or smiled....

VI

Simon had been right in thinking that the tale of the car would be all over the town by the time he arrived. He came across it, indeed, almost the moment that he got in. The driver of the car had told a farmer or two in the inn-yard, and the farmer or two had chuckled with glee and gone out to spread it among the rest. Of course, they took good care that it lost nothing in the telling, and, moreover, the driver had given it a good shove-off at the start. He told them that Simon had shaken his fist and wept aloud, and that Sarah had fainted away and couldn't be brought round. A later account had it that the chase had lasted fast and furious for miles, ending with an accident in Witham streets. Simon encountered the tale in many lengths and shapes, and it was hard to say whether the flippant or sympathetic folk annoyed him most. He always started out by refusing to discuss the matter at all, and then wouldn't stop talking about it once he had begun.

"Ay, well, ye see, I thought it was a hea.r.s.e," he always growled, when forced to admit that part of the tale, at least, was true. "Mebbe I was half asleep, or thinking o' summat else; or likely I'm just daft, like other folk not so far." Here he usually threw a glance at the enquiring friend, who gave a loud guffaw and shifted from foot to foot. "Ay, a hea.r.s.e,--yon's what I thought it was, wi' nid-noddin' plumes, and happen a corp in a coffin fleein' along inside. You've no call to make such a stir about it as I can see," he wound up helplessly, with a threatening scowl. "Boggles isn't out o' date yet by a parlish long while, and there's many a body still wick as can mind seeing Jamie Lowther's headless Coach and Four!"

He forgot to feel annoyed, however, when he found that his story had made him in some sort the hero of the day. He could see folks talking about him and pointing him out as he went along, and men came up smiling and wanting a chat who as a rule had no more for him than a casual nod.

Often, indeed, he had only a dreary time, bemoaning his fate with one or two cronies almost as luckless as himself; listening, perhaps, on the edge of an interested group, or wandering into some bar for a sup of ale and a pipe. But to-day he was as busy as an old wife putting the story to rights, and when he had stopped being angry for having behaved like a fool, he began to feel rather proud of himself for having done something rather fine. He ended, indeed, by laughing as heartily as the rest, and allowed several points to pa.s.s which had nothing whatever to do with the truth. He felt more important than he had done for years, and forgot for a while the press of his troubles and the fear about Sarah's eyes.

Will told himself that he hadn't seen him so cheerful for long, and wondered whether things were really as bad at the farm as his brother had made out.

They made a curious couple as they went about, because in face and figure they were so alike, and yet the stamp of their different circ.u.mstances was so plain. They had the same thin face and dreamy eyes, lean figure and fine bones, but whereas one carried his age well and his head high, the other had long since bowed himself to the weight of the years. Will wore a light overcoat of a modern make, brown boots and a fashionable soft hat; but Simon's ancient suit was of some rough, hard stuff that had never paid any attention to his frame. Will had a white collar and neat tie; but Simon had a faded neckcloth with colourless spots, and he wore dubbined boots that had clogged soles, and a wideawake that had once been black but now was green. Eliza often observed in her kindly way that Simon looked old enough to be Will's father, but indeed it was in the periods to which they seemed to belong that the difference was most marked. Will had been pushed ahead by prosperity and a striving brood; while Simon had gone steadily down the hill where the years redouble the moment you start to run.

They had encountered the agent early on, and fixed an appointment for twelve o'clock; and afterwards they spent the morning together until noon struck from the Town Hall. Will had grown rather tired of hearing the hea.r.s.e story by then, and felt slightly relieved when the time came for them to part. "Nay, I'll not come in," he demurred, as Simon urged him at the door of the 'Rising Sun.' "You'll manage a deal better by yourself. You needn't fear, though, but what I'll see you through.

We'll settle summat or other at Blindbeck this afternoon."

But at the very moment he turned away he changed his mind again and turned back. "I can't rightly make out about yon car," he asked, almost as if against his will. "What, in the name o' fortune, made you behave like yon?"

Simon muttered gloomily that he didn't know, and shuffled his feet uncomfortably on the step. Now that the shadow of the coming interview was upon him, he was not so perfectly sure as he had been that the story was a joke. He remembered his terror when the car was at his back, his frantic certainty that there were strange things in the air. He took it amiss, too, both as a personal insult and from superst.i.tion, that the Town Hall chimes should be playing "There is no luck about the house"

just as he stepped inside.

"It was n.o.bbut a hired car, wasn't it," Will went on,--"wi' two chaps in it, they said, as come from Liverpool way?"

"That's what they've tellt me since," Simon agreed, "though I never see it plain.... Seems as if it might be a warning or summat," he added, with a shamefaced air.

"Warning o' what?" Will threw at him with a startled glance. "Nay, now!

Whatever for?"

"Death, happen," Simon said feebly,--"nay, it's never that! I'm wrong in my head, I doubt," he added, trying to laugh; "but there's queerish things, all the same. There's some see coffins at the foot o' their beds, and you'll think on when last Squire's missis died sudden-like yon hard winter, she had it she could smell t'wreaths in t'house every day for a month before."

"Ay, well, you'd best put it out of your head as sharp as you can," Will soothed him, moving away. "You're bothering overmuch about the farm, that's what it is. A nip o' frost in the air'll likely set you right.

Weather's enough to make anybody dowly, it's that soft."

"Ay, it's soft," Simon agreed, lifting his eyes to look at the sky, and wondering suddenly how long it had taken the gull to get itself out to sea. His brother nodded and went away, and he drifted unwillingly into the inn. The chimes had finished their ill-omened song, but the echo of it still seemed to linger on the air. They told him inside that Mr.

Dent was engaged, so he went into the bar to wait, seating himself where he could see the stairs. The landlord tried to coax him to talk, but he was too melancholy to respond, and could only sit waiting for the door to open and summon him overhead. He was able to think, now that he was away from the crowd and the chaff about the hea.r.s.e, but no amount of thinking could find him a way out. He had already given the agent a hint of his business, and would only have to confirm it when he got upstairs, but it seemed to him at the moment as if the final words would never be said. After a while, indeed, he began to think that he would sneak away quietly and let the appointment go. He would say no more about the notice to Mr. Dent, and things might take their way for another year.

It was just possible, with the promised help from Will, that they might manage to sc.r.a.pe along for another year....

He left it there at last and got to his feet, but even as he did so he remembered Sarah's eyes. He wondered what the doctor had said and wished he knew, because, of course, there would be no question of staying if the report were bad. He was still standing, hesitating, and wondering what he should do, when the door of the Stewards' Room opened above, and a man came out.

It was, as somehow might have been expected, the stranger of the car, otherwise Simon's now celebrated 'hea.r.s.e.' Simon, however, had not looked at him then, and he barely glanced at him now. It was a blind day, as Sarah had said, and all through the Thornthwaites seemed determined to be as blind as the day. The agent followed him out, looking cheerful and amused. "I wish you luck all round!" Simon heard him say, as he shook the stranger's hand, and thought morosely that it was easy and cheap to wish folks luck. "This should be the finest day of your life," he added more gravely, looking over the rail, and the man going down looked up and said "That's so!" in a fervent tone. The old farmer waiting in the bar felt a spasm of envy and bitterness at the quietly triumphant words. "The finest day of your life,"--that was for the man going down. "The heaviest day of your life,"--that was for the man going up. With a touch of dreary humour he thought to himself that it was really he who was going down, if it came to that....

With a feeling of something like shame he kept himself out of sight until the stranger had disappeared, and then experienced a slight shock when Dent called to him in the same cheery tone. Almost without knowing it he had looked for the voice to change, and its geniality jarred on his dismal mood. Somehow it seemed to put him about at the start, and when Dent laid a hand on his shoulder, saying--"Well, Simon!" with a smile, it was all he could do not to give him a surly snarl by way of reply. They went into the old-fashioned room, which smelt of horsehair and wool mats, and Simon seated himself miserably on the extreme edge of a chair. Dent went to the window and lifted a finger to somebody in the street, and then seated himself at the table, and said "Well, Simon!"

and smiled again. He was a strongly built man, with a pleasant face, which seemed rather more pleasant than need be to his visitor's jaundiced eye.

He looked away from it, however, staring at the floor, and after the first conventional remarks began his tale of woe, that slow trickle of disaster which always gathered itself into terrible spate. "You'll know what I'm here for, sir," he concluded, at the end of his first breath, twisting his hat like a tea-tray in his restless hands. "Things has got that bad wi' us I doubt we can't go on, and so we've made up our minds we'd best clear out next year."

Dent nodded kindly in answer, but with a rather abstracted air. He had listened patiently enough to the slow tale, but Simon had a feeling that his tragic recital was not receiving the sympathy it deserved. He began a fresh relation of the ills which had befallen him at the farm, intending a grand climax to be capped by Sarah's eyes; but there were so many dead troubles to dig out of their graves as he went along, that the last and most vital dropped from the reckoning, after all.