Part + 

I + 

Simon and Sarah + 

I + 

Perhaps it would never have happened but for the day. A brave, buoyant day, with a racing wind, might have scattered the clinging obsession just in time. A tender, laughing day might have laid a healing finger on old sores. A clean, frosty day might have braced the naturally sane old mind. But Fate, out of all the days in the year, took upon itself to send just this. + 

The human soul, which seems so utterly out of reach, is only shut away from every other soul. In every other respect it is like a harp hung on a tree. Even the actual day as it comes is itself a lever in many a fate. Deeds are done on certain days which on others would be mere passing impulses easily dead before the night. This blind Martinmas Day went all day long with its head among the clouds, as if it thought that never again would there be any sun. Indeed, it was out of the lack of every sort of sight that the evil grew; since, otherwise⁠—“Mothers couldn’t have done those things,” as Geordie would have said. + 

All day the earth retained that stillness which it keeps as a rule only for the last hour before the dawn. Everywhere in the morning there was mist⁠—that strange, wandering, thinking mist that seems to have nothing to do with either earth or air; and when the slow dark drew back there would be mist everywhere again. Between those shadowy tidemarks of the air there was a space when the white mist shredded above the trees, leaving the atmosphere with the look of a glass that has been breathed upon and never clears. + 

The Simon Thornthwaites were going to market simply because they did not know how to stay away. They went as naturally as the sun comes out of the east, but with a good deal less of decision about the journey. They looked dull and tired, too, less indeed as if they were setting out than as if they were wearily trundling home again. Both horse and trap looked as though they might fall to pieces after an extra jolt, and the jumble of harness was mended here and there with string. There was neither butter nor fowl in the market-basket behind; there was not even a limp rabbit dangling over the wheel. But all the time they were part of a chain which gave them a motive and impulse not their own, since others, more sure of their errand, were taking the same road. Sometimes a horseman on a young Shire went past with a flash of feather and a clumping of hoofs. Livelier traps spun by at a trot and gave them a hail. Behind and before them they had an occasional glimpse of the procession stretching to the town. + 

They had climbed from the marsh, leaving it dropped like a colourless cloth beside the sea, and already they seemed to have been a long time on the road. They had not slept much, and, waking, had had the cheated feeling, common to the weary, that the foregoing day had never really ended nor the incoming morning ever quite begun. Indeed, the strange, dreamlike day had never really seemed to come awake. Looking back and west, they saw everything grey, with just a lightened shadow marking the far sea, and the marsh lying down on its face like a figure flung down to die. Houses sat low to the earth as if they crouched, and the trees were vague, bodiless wisps, without backbone or sap. When they had their first glimpse of Witham, they saw the town on the fell-side like a fortress through smoked glass, and the Castle alone on its hill was of shadow-stones poised on a poised cloud. + 

The Simon Thornthwaites were old now, and underdogs in the tussle of life, but they had once been as strong and confident as most. Sometimes they had a vision of their former selves, and wondered how this could ever have been that. The old man was thin and bent, the sort that shows the flame through the lantern long before the end, but the woman was stronger-boned, squarer, and still straight. Most of her life she had worked like a horse, but she was still straight. Her face was mask-like and her mouth close. Only her hands betrayed her at times⁠—old, overdone hands that would not always be still. Her eyes seemed to look straight before her at something only she could see⁠—staring and staring at the image which she had set up. + 

They farmed Sandholes down on the marsh, a lonely bit of a spot that looked as if it had been left there for a winter’s tide to take away. It had always had an unlucky name, and, like many unlucky people and things, seemed to have the trick of attracting to itself those who were equally ill-starred. Certainly, Sandholes and the Thornthwaites between them had achieved amazing things in the way of ill-luck. No doubt both farm and folk would have done better apart, but then they had never succeeded in getting apart. It was just as if Fate had thrown and kept them together in order to do each other down. Luck to luck⁠—there seemed nothing else to be said about the Thornthwaites’ plight. They even carried the stamp of each other plain to be seen. You had only to look at the farm to know how its tenants looked; you had only to see the folk to know what their home was like. Perhaps it was just that the double weight of misfortune was too big a thing to lift. Perhaps the canker at the heart of it all would allow nothing to prosper and grow sweet. + 

They had an easy landlord, easy and rich; too easy and rich, perhaps, for the Thornthwaites’ good. That farm had money⁠—landlord’s and tenant’s⁠—spent on it above its due; yes, and a certain amount of borrowed brass as well. It had work put into it, thought and courage sufficient to run a colony, and goodwill enough to build a church. And all that it did in return was to go back and back and be a deadhead and a chapter of accidents and an everlasting disappointment and surprise. It was a standing contradiction of the saying⁠—“Be honest with the land, and it will be honest with you.” Everything went wrong with that farm that could go wrong, as well as other things that couldn’t by any chance have gone anything but right. Most people would have thrown a stone at it at an early stage, but it was part of the Thornthwaite doom that they could not tear themselves away. Even when there seemed no longer a reason for staying, still they stayed. The one streak of sentiment in them that survived the dismal years held them there captive by its silken string. + 

But today, as they jogged and jolted endlessly towards Witham, the whole, drear, long business came to an end. No matter what they had thought of the probable future to themselves, they had hitherto shut their mouths obstinately and clung close. They had never even said to each other that some day they would have to quit. They had put it off so long that it seemed the least little push would always put it further still. But today the matter suddenly settled itself for good; almost, it seemed, between one telegraph-post and the next. + 

Martinmas hirings would be in full swing when they got in, but there was no need now for Simon to enter the ring. Their hired man had seen them through the busiest time, but they could manage without him through the winter months. Their hired men had never stayed very long, because the depression of the place seemed to get into their bones. They tired of crops which seemed to make a point of “finger and toe,” and of waiting through dismal weeks to get in the hay. Now the Thornthwaites would never have the worry of hay-time on their own account again⁠—never open the door to catch the scent from their waiting fields⁠—never watch the carts coming back on the golden evening to the barn. “Never again” would be written over many things after today, but perhaps it was there that they saw it written first. After all this time things had somehow stopped of themselves, and after all this time there was nothing to do but go. + 

Lads and lasses went by them on cycles, or tugging bundles as they walked; youth with bright cheeks and strong shoulders and clear eyes, taking its health and strength to the market to be hired. Some of them greeted the old folks as they passed, but others did not as much as know their names. Both Simon and Sarah came of old and respectable stock, but to the young generation skimming by on wheels these two had been as good as buried years ago. Sarah’s eyes strained themselves after the lithe bodies of the lads, while Simon looked at the lasses with their loads. He would have liked to have offered some of them a lift, but he knew he would catch it from Sarah if he did. Sarah hated the younger end of folk, she always said, and the flyaway lasses she hated most of all. She saw them going past her into beautiful life, just as their swifter wheels went past the trap. Always they were leaving her behind as it seemed to her that she had always been left. It was true, of course, that she had had her turn, but now it seemed so far away it might never have been. All she could see in the background when she looked behind was the cheerless desert which she had had to cover since. + 

They were about halfway to Witham when the moment of spoken decision caught them unawares. All their stolid resistance and obstinate clinging to the farm gave in that instant as easily as a pushed door. It was as if a rock at the mouth of a cave had suddenly proved no more than a cloud pausing before it in the act of drifting by. The end came as nearly always after a prolonged fight⁠—smoothly, painlessly, with a curious lack of interest or personal will. The burden had been so heavy that the last straw passed almost unnoticed which brought them finally to the ground. They had lived so close to the edge for so many years that the step which carried them over it scarcely jarred. + 

They were climbing the long hill that runs from Doestone Hall, the Tudor house standing close to the crossroads. By turning their heads they could see its gabled front with the larches set like lances beside its door. The river ran swift below the beech-covered slope of the park, reaching impatiently after the ebbed tide. The house, for all the weight of its age, looked unsubstantial in the filmy air. Fast as the river flowed below, from above it looked like a sheeted but still faintly moving corpse. + 

The road was damp and shadowy under the overhanging trees, and padded with the hoof-welded carpet of the autumn leaves. The fields on either side were formless and wet, and seemed to stretch away to unknown lengths. The hedges appeared to wander and wind across the land without purpose and without end. Under all the hedges and trees there were leaves, wet splashes of crushed colour on the misted grass. Simon lifted his whip to point at the hips and haws, and said it would be a hard winter when it came, but Sarah did not so much as turn her head. + 

“I’m bothered a deal wi’ my eyes, Simon,” she said in a quiet tone. “I thought I’d best see doctor about ’em today.” + 

He dropped his gaze from the hedges with a startled stare. “Oh, ay? That’s summat fresh, isn’t it?” he enquired. “You’ve never said nowt about it afore.” + 

“Nay, what, I thought it was likely just old age. But I’ve gitten a deal worse these last few week. I can’t shape to do a bit o’ sewing or owt.” + 

“Ay, well, you’d best see doctor right off,” Simon said, and the horse crawled a little further up the hill. They did not speak again for some time, but those who live together in a great loneliness grow to speak together in thought as much as in words. That was why his next speech seemed to come out placidly enough. “I doubt it’s about time for us to quit.” + 

“I doubt it is.” + 

“I never meant to gang till I was carried,” Simon said, “and then I doubt there’d still ha’ been some o’ me left. But I’ve seen the end o’ things coming for a while back now. It seems kind o’ meant, you being bothered wi’ your eyes an’ all.” + 

“Happen it is,” she said again, and sighed. Then she laughed, a slight laugh, but bitter and grim. “It nobbut wanted that on top o’ the rest!” + 

Simon threw her an uneasy glance. + 

“Nay, now, you mustn’t get down about it, missis,” he said hastily. “It waint do to get down. Doctor’ll likely see his way to put you right. But we’ve had a terble poor time wi’ it all,” he went on glumly, forgetting his own advice. “Seems like as if we’d been overlooked by summat, you and me. ’Tisn’t as if we’d made such a bad start at things, neither. We were both on us strong and willing when we was wed. It’s like as if there’d been a curse o’ some sort on the danged spot!” + 

“There’s been a curse on the lot of us right enough!” Sarah said. “Ay, and we don’t need telling where it come from, neither!” + 

Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no notice of her bitter speech. He knew only too well that haunted corner of her mind. That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every inch. + 

“Ay, well, we’re through on t’far side on’t now,” he said morosely. “Sandholes can grind the soul out o’ some other poor body for the next forty year! I never hear tell o’ such a spot!” he went on crossly, with that puzzled exasperation which he always showed when discussing the marsh-farm. “It’d be summat to laugh at if only it didn’t make you dancin’ mad! What, it’s like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen sticking to t’roof! We’ve had t’tide in t’house more nor once, and sure an’ certain it’d be when we’d summat new in the way o’ gear. We’d a fire an’ all, you’ll think on, and it took us a couple o’ year getting to rights agen. Burned out and drownded out⁠—why, it’s right silly, that’s what it is! As for t’land, what it fair swallers up lime an’ slag and any mak’ o’ manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can for it in return. Nigh every crop we’ve had yet was some sort of a letdown⁠—that’s if we’d happen luck to get it at all! Kitchen garden’s near as bad; lile or nowt’ll come up in’t, nobbut you set by it and hod its hand! Ay, and the stock, now⁠—if there was sickness about, sure an’ certain it’d fix on us. You’d nobbut just to hear o’ tell o’ foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o’ the sort, an’ it’d be showing at Sandholes inside a week! Same wi’ t’folk in t’house as wi’ folk in t’shuppon⁠—fever, fluenzy, diphthery⁠—the whole doctor’s bag o’ tricks. Nay, there’s summat queer about spot, and that’s Bible truth! We should ha’ made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and tried our luck somewheres else.” + 

“We’d likely just ha’ taken our luck along wi’ us,” Sarah said, “and there was yon brass we’d sunk in the spot⁠—ay, and other folks’ brass an’ all.” (Simon growled “Ay, ay,” to this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he thought it might well have been left unsaid.) “We were set enough on Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was running about as a bit of a lad.” + 

“Ay, and Jim.” + 

“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!” + 

“Ay, well, it’s a bit since now,” Simon said hastily, thinking that it seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland to the marsh. + 

“Over forty year.” + 

“It’s a bit since,” he said again, just as he said equally of the Creation of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham Show. + 

“Surely to goodness we were right enough then? We shouldn’t ha’ said thank you for any other spot. Nay, and we wouldn’t ha’ gone later on, neither, if we’d gitten chanst. It would never ha’ done for Geordie to come back and find the old folks quit.” + 

“Nay, nor for Jim⁠—” he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off. “Ay, well, I doubt he’ll never come back now!” + 

“He’s likely best where he is.” Sarah shut her mouth with a hard snap. Once again she stared straight in front of her over the horse’s head, staring and staring at the image which she had set up. + 

A motor-horn challenged them presently from behind, and Simon pulled aside without even turning his head. He had never really grown used to the cars and the stricter rule of the road. He belonged to the days when the highway to Witham saw a leisurely procession of farmers’ shandrydans, peat-carts, and carriers’ carts with curved hoods; with here and there a country gentleman’s pair of steppers flashing their way through. He never took to the cars with their raucous voices and trains of dust, their sudden gusts of passage which sent his heart into his mouth. His slack-reined driving forced him to keep to the crown of the road, and only an always forthcoming miracle got him out of the way in time. He used to shrink a little when the cars drew level, and the occupants turned their curious heads. Somehow the whole occurrence had the effect of a definite personal attack. Sometimes he thought they laughed at the jolting trap, the shabby old couple and the harness tied with string. The rush of the cars seemed to bring a crescendo of mocking voices and leave a trail of diminishing mirth. But as a matter of fact he did not often look at them when they looked at him. There was nothing to link their hurrying world with his. + 

This particular car, however, seemed an unusually long time in getting past. The horn sounded again, and, muttering indignantly, he pulled still further into the hedge-side. He held his breath for the usual disturbance and rush, but they did not come. The car kept closely behind him, but it did not pass. Round each corner, as they reached it, he lost and then caught again the subdued purring of the engine and the soft slurring of the wheels. When they met anything, it fell further back, so that at times he felt sure that it must have stopped. Then he would draw his breath, and drop into a walk, but almost at once it would be at his back again. The note of it grew to have a stealthy, stalking sound, as of something that waited to spring upon its prey. + 

The strangeness of this proceeding began suddenly to tell upon Simon’s nerves. Lack of interest had at first prevented him from turning his head, but now it changed into sheer inability to look behind. Soon he was in the grip of a panic fear that the car at his back might not be a real car, after all. He began to think that he had only imagined the horn, the gentle note of the engine and the soft sound of the wheels. Perhaps, now that he was old, his ears were playing him false, just as Sarah’s eyes, so it seemed, were suddenly playing her false. Presently he was sure, if he turned, he would see nothing at all, or that, instead of nothing at all, he would see a ghost. Something that moved in another world would be there, with spidery wheels and a body through which he could see the fields; something that had once belonged to life and gone out with a crash, or was only just coming into it on the road.⁠ ⁠… + 

It was quite true that there was something peculiar about the behaviour of the car. From its number, it must have come from the county next below, and it was splashed as if it had travelled far and fast. During the last few miles, however, it had done nothing but crawl. More than one farmer had heard it behind him and wondered why it took so long to pass, but it had never dallied and dawdled so long before. Almost at once it had gathered speed and slithered by, and the man inside had turned with a friendly hail. He was a stranger, so they said afterwards, with a puzzled air, but at the time they answered the hail as if he were one of themselves. + 

But Simon, at least, had no intention of hailing anybody just then. Indeed, he was fast losing both his sense and his self-control. He slapped the reins on the horse’s back, making urgent, uncouth sounds, and doing his best to yank it into a sharper trot. It plunged forward with an air of surprise, so that the old folks bumped in their seats, knocked against each other and were jerked back. Presently it bundled itself into an aged gallop, while Simon clicked at it through his scanty teeth. + 

“Nay, now, master, what are you at!” Sarah protested, gripping the rail. “We’ve no call to hurry ourselves, think on.” + 

“It’s yon danged car!” Simon growled, feeling somehow as though he were galloping, too. He was quite sure now that a boggle was hot on his track, and the sweat stood on his brow as he slapped and lashed. Losing his nerve completely, he got to his feet with a shout, at the same time waving the car to pass ahead. It obeyed instantly, drawing level in a breath, and just for a breath slowing again as it reached his side. The hired driver was wearing a cheerful grin, but the man leaning out of the back of the car was perfectly grave. He was a big man, tanned, with steady grey-blue eyes, fixed on the old couple with an earnest gaze. Simon, however, would not have looked at him for gold, and after its momentary hesitation, the car shot on. The horse felt its master drop back again in his seat, and subsided, panting, into its slowest crawl. + 

Sarah straightened her bonnet, and tugged at her mantle upon which Simon had collapsed. “Whatever took you to act like yon?” she asked. “There was nowt to put you about as I could see.” + 

“It was yon danged car!” Simon muttered again, but beginning already to feel rather ashamed. “It give me the jumps, taking so long to get by. What, I got thinking after a bit it wasn’t a motorcar at all! More like a hearse it seemed, when it ganged past⁠—a gert, black hearse wi’ nid-noddin’ feathers on top.⁠ ⁠…” He let out a great sigh, mopping his face as if he would never stop. “Danged if yon new strap baint gone and give out first thing!” + 

He climbed down, grumbling at the new strap which had gone back on him so soon, and began to add a fresh ornamentation to the mended gear. The horse stood with drooped head, emitting great breaths which shook and stirred the trap. Simon’s hands trembled as he worked at his woolly knot, his eyes still full of that vision of sweeping plumes. Further down the road the car had stopped again, but as soon as Simon had finished, it moved away. It went over the hill as if it indeed had wings⁠—feathery, velvet-black and soft on the misty air.⁠ ⁠… + 

II + 

Another thing happened to them on the road to Witham, though it was even more trivial than the last. The first, perhaps, was meant for Simon⁠—that face coming out of the void and trying to look him in the eyes. The other⁠—a voice from the void⁠—was a call to the woman with the failing sight. But to most people there come these days of slight, blind, reasonless events. Something that is not so much memory as revision reaches out of the past into the present; faint foretellings shape themselves out of some far-off hour. And then on the following morning there is sun, and clear outlines and a blowing sky. The firm circlet of Today is bound again shining and hard about the narrow earth. + 

For a short time they seemed almost alone on the processional road. No more cars passed them, and only occasionally a bicycle or a trap. Simon felt more than ever ashamed of himself as his nerve steadied and his excitement cooled. He had made a bonny fool of himself, he thought, standing up and shouting as if he was cracked. Witham would snap at the tale like a meaty bone, and folk would be waiting to twit him when he got in. It wasn’t as if he were in the mood for a joke, either, seeing how things were; he would find it hard to take it as it was meant. And there was one person at least to whom the tale would be Balm in Gilead for many a happy day. He hoped fervently that it might not reach her ears. + 

Sooner or later it would reach her, of course; everything that made mock of them always did. The most that could be hoped for was that they would not meet her today, backed by her usual sycophantic crowd. Sarah would never stand any nonsense from her today, depressed as she was by the trouble about her eyes. There would be a scuffle between them, as sure as eggs were eggs, and just when he wanted things smooth in that quarter, too. He thought of giving her a hint to be careful, and opened his mouth, and then decided to keep off the subject, and shut it again. + 

Not that they ever did keep off it, as he knew perfectly well. Sooner or later it was on their lips, and certainly always after a day at market. They had discussed it so often from every possible point that they did not always know which it was that spoke. They had long since forgotten from which of their minds the bitter, perpetual speeches had first been born. Often they waked in the night to talk of the hated thing, and slept and wakened only to talk of it again. There was nothing good that they had which it had not poisoned at the source, and no sorrow but was made a double sorrow thereby. There was scarcely one of their memories that did not ache because of that constant sword-point in its heart. + 

It was on market-day each week that their fount of bitterness was continually refreshed. They kept up the old habit for more reasons than one, but most of all because of this thing which hurt and cramped their lives. It was like a vice of some sort which had long become an imperative need. Each week they came home with the iron fresh sunk in their souls, and each week they went again to look on the thing that they both loathed. + 

Now they were right away from the marsh and the sands, and would not see them until they returned, although from the moor and fell-land surrounding Witham it was always possible to see the bay. Indeed, in this part of the little county it was hard to get away from the knowledge of the sea, and even further in, among the shouldering peaks, you had only to climb awhile to find the water almost within a throw. On days like this, however, even on the beach it was hard to tell which was water and which mist, and when at last the tide drew silently from beneath, those who looked at it from the hills could not tell whether it went or stayed. + 

Simon, looking drearily around, thought that the whole earth had a drowned appearance today. It reminded him of the marsh after it had been swamped by a flood, and the miserable land emerged soddenly as the sea drew back. Everything was so still, too, with the stillness of the dead or drugged. Only the mist moved steadily and of set purpose, though it was the purpose of a creature with shut eyes walking in its sleep. + 

Out of the low vapour softly roofing the fields a gull came flying slowly over their heads. First Simon saw the shadow of it huge upon the mist, and then it came swooping and circling until it hung above the road. Its long, pointed wings and drooping legs were magnified by the distorting air, and presently he could see the colour of its bill and the gleam of its expressionless eye. It moved in that lifeless atmosphere as a ship that has lost the wind moves still by its gathered momentum over a deadened sea, but when it came over the road it turned to follow the trap, instead of making away at an angle towards the west. Simon concluded that it must have lost its way in the mist, and was following them as seabirds follow a boat, but presently he was reminded of the car in this leisurely gliding on their track. Like the car, too, it drew level at last, but this time he was not afraid. He looked up at it, indeed, but without much interest, watching its lone vagrancy with apathetic eyes. It was silent at first as it circled and swooped, looping its aimless, unnecessary curves, yet always travelling on. It might have been a piece of the wandering mist that had taken shape, yet the sluggish, unbuoyant atmosphere seemed scarcely to have sufficient strength to carry its weight. So low it flew at last that it almost brushed their faces and the horse’s ears, and in fancy he felt the touch of it damp and soft against his cheek. And then, as it dropped for the hundredth time, it suddenly spoke. + 

Sarah started violently when the cry broke over her head, the harsh wailing cry that makes all sands desolate and all moorland lone. She lifted her face to search the curtained sky as well as she could, but already the bird had left them and mounted higher, as if called and turned to another road. Each cry as it came was fainter than the last, like the speech of a passing soul ever further off. There was about it something of the majesty and terror of all irrevocable retreats, of those who go forth unhesitatingly when summoned, never to return. It left behind it the same impulse to reach out passionate, yearning arms, to cry aloud for the fainting answer that would still go on long after the ear had ceased to take it in. + 

Sarah sat with her face lifted to the last, trembling and drawing short, uneven breaths. Simon was silent until she had settled again, and then⁠—“It was nobbut a gull,” he said, at length. + 

She gave a deep sigh, and folded her hands tightly before her in their black cotton gloves. + 

“We’ve plenty on ’em, I’m sure, down on t’marsh.⁠ ⁠… I’m that used to them, I never hear their noise.” + 

She turned her head slightly towards him, as if in a vain attempt to see his face. + 

“Ay, but it was that like,” she answered in a suppressed tone. “Eh, man, but it was terble like!” + 

He gave a grunt by way of reply, knowing well enough what she meant, but knowing also that there was nothing to say. It was not true, of course, that he never heard the gulls. He heard them always, and behind them the voice that called across the years. But they had long since ceased to talk about it or to take the voice of the present for the voice of the past. Sometimes, indeed, when the cry came at the window on a stormy night, they started and looked at each other, and then looked away. But it was not often that they were deceived, as Sarah had been today. Even now, he felt sure, she was straining after the voice, that would never cease crying until it reached the tide. + 

They were passed again before they reached the town, but this time it was by the cheerful rap of hoofs. It caught them as they creaked their way up the last hill⁠—the smart going of a good horse that even on the smothered highway managed to ring sharp. A whip was waved as the dogcart dashed by, and the driver turned back to give them a smile. She was Fleming’s motherless daughter from the “Ship” Inn across the sands, and Simon and Sarah had known her all her life. All her life she had lived looking out across the bay, and half her life looking a thousand miles beyond. + 

Simon threw up his hand to her with an answering smile, a sudden sweetness changing his whole face. Even Sarah relaxed when she knew who it was, and both of them brightened for a little while. They were fond of May, a good girl who did not change, and who never made light of those whom Fate was counting out. She had always had the power to strengthen their hold on life, to blow their dying courage into a flame. There was a serene yet pulsing strength about her that had the soothing stimulus of a summer tide. Sarah had been jealous of her when she was young, and had fended her off, but May had long since found her patient way to her heart. Now she stood to both the old people as their one firm link with the past, and as such she was more precious to them than rubies and dearer than bright gold. + 

“A good lass!” Simon observed, with the smile still present on his lips. + 

“Ay.” + 

“I’ve always thought a deal o’ May.” + 

“Ay, an’ me.” + 

“Geordie an’ all,” he added, with a faintly mischievous air. + 

Sarah did not speak. + 

“An’ Jim⁠—” + 

“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!” + 

Simon drew the lash gently along the horse’s back. + 

“I hear Fleming’s been none so well lately,” he resumed, as they rumbled into Witham. “We mun think on to ax. Happen I could slip across to t’ ‘Ship’ after we’ve gitten back. Tide’s about six, isn’t it? I could happen do it.” + 

“Fleming’s nobbut going the same road as t’rest on us,” Sarah said. “He’ll be glad to see you, though, like enough. But it’ll be dark soon, think on, wi’ all this fog.” + 

“There’s summat queer about t’weather,” Simon said broodingly, knitting his brows. “Tides is fairish big, and yet it’s terble whyet. Happen we’ll have a change o’ some sort afore so long.” + 

“I’ve noticed it’s often whyet afore a big change. Seems like as if it knew what was coming afore it was on t’road.” + 

“Ay, but it’s different, some way.⁠ ⁠… It’s more nor that. There’s a blind look about things, seems to me.” + 

“Blind weather for blind folk!” Sarah put in with a grim laugh. Simon grunted a protest but she took no notice. “I never thought as I should be blind,” she went on, almost as if to herself. “I’ve always been terble sharp wi’ my eyes; likely that’s why I’ve managed to wear ’em out. And I’ve always been terble feared o’ folk as couldn’t see. There’s no telling what blind weather and a blind body’s brain may breed.⁠ ⁠… Ay, well, likely I’ll know a bit more about they sort o’ things now.⁠ ⁠…” + 

III + 

All old and historical towns seem older and richer in meaning on some days than they do on others. But the old and the rich days are also the most aloof. The towns withdraw, as it were, to ponder on their past. By some magic of their own they eliminate all the latest features, such as a library, a garage, or a new town hall, and show you nothing but winding alleys filled with leaning walls and mossy roofs. The eye finds for itself with ease things which it has seen for a lifetime and yet never seen⁠—carved stone dates, colour-washed houses jutting out over worn pillars, grey, mullioned houses tucked away between the shops. The old pigments and figures stand out strangely on the well-known signs, and the old names of the inns make a new music in the ear. The mother-church by the river seems bowed to the earth with the weight of the prayers that cling to her arched roof. The flags in the chancel seem more fragile than they did last week. The whole spirit of the town sinks, as the eyelids of the old sink on a twilit afternoon. + 

Witham wore this air of detachment when Simon and Sarah came to it today, as if it held itself aloof from one of the busiest spectacles of the year. The long main street, rising and dipping, but otherwise running as if on a terrace cut in the side of the hill, was strung from end to end with the scattered units of the road. The ambling traffic blocked and dislocated itself with the automatic ease of a body of folk who are all acquainted with each other’s ways. Groups clustered on the pavements, deep in talk, and overflowed carelessly into the street. Horses’ heads came up over their shoulders and car wheels against their knees, without disturbing either their conversation or their nerves. Sheepdogs hung closely at their masters’ heels, or slipped with a cocked eye between the hoofs. The shops were full, but those who wandered outside to wait could always find a friend to fill their time. Simon’s personal cronies jerked their heads at him as he passed, and the busy matrons nodded a greeting as they hurried in front of the horse’s nose. + 

He made as if to draw up at the house of a well-known doctor in the town, but Sarah stopped him before he reached the kerb. “Nay, nay,” she said nervously, “it’ll likely bide. I don’t know as I’m that fain to hear what he’s got to say. Anyway, I’d a deal sooner get my marketing done first.” + 

So instead of stopping they went straight to the inn where they had put up on market-day for the last forty years, and where Simon’s father had put up before Simon was born. Turning suddenly across the pavement through a narrow entry, they plunged sharply downhill into a sloping yard. The back premises of old houses shut it in on every side, lifting their top windows for a glimpse of the near moor. The inn itself, small and dark, with winding staircases and innumerable doors, had also this sudden vision of a lone, high world against the sky. + 

An ancient ostler came to help Simon with the horse, while Sarah waited on the sloping stones. The steep yard was full of traps, pushed under sheds or left in the open with their shafts against the ground. Fleming’s dogcart was there, with its neat body and light wheels; but May was already gone on her business in the town. Simon had an affection for a particular spot of his own, and it always put him about to find it filled. It was taken this morning, he found, though not by May. May would never have played him a trick like that. It was a car that was standing smugly in Simon’s place, with a doubled-up driver busy about its wheels. Cars were always intruders in the cobbled old yard, but it was a personal insult to find one in his “spot.” He went and talked to the driver about it in rising tones, and the driver stood on his head and made biting comments between his feet. A man came to one of the inn windows while the scene was on, and listened attentively to the feast of reason and the flow of soul. + 

Sarah looked rather white and shaky by the time Simon returned, thinking of something new to say to the very last. He left the newest and best unsaid, however, when he saw her face. + 

“You’d best set down for a bit,” he observed, leading her anxiously towards the inn. “You’re fretting yourself about seeing doctor, that’s what it is. You’d ha’ done better to call as we come in.” + 

But Sarah insisted that she was not troubling about the doctor in the least. She had been right as a bobbin, she said, and then she had suddenly come over all queer. “Happen it’s standing that long while you and morter-man sauced each other about car!” she added, with shaky spirit. “You made a terble song about it, I’m sure. Trap’ll do well enough where it is.” + 

“I can’t abide they morter-folk!” Simon muttered, crestfallen but still vexed. “But never mind about yon. Gang in and set you down. If I happen across May, I’ll tell her to look you up.” + 

A door opened at the end of the dark passage, showing a warm parlour with flowers and crimson blinds. The stout landlady came swimming towards them, speaking as she swam, so that the vibrations of her welcoming voice reached them first like oncoming waves. Another door opened in the wall on the right, and a man looked out from the dim corner behind. + 

“That you, Mrs. Thornthet? What?⁠—not so well? Nay, now, it’ll never do to start market-day feeling badly, I’m sure! Come along in and rest yourself by t’fire, and a cup of tea’ll happen set you right.” + 

Sarah, shaken and faint, and longing to sit down, yet hesitated as if afraid to step inside. It seemed to her, as she paused, that there was some ordeal in front of her which she could not face. Her heart beat and her throat was dry, and though she longed to go in, she was unable to stir. The man inside saw her against a background of misty yard, a white face and homely figure dressed in threadbare black. Once or twice his gaze left her to dwell on Simon, but it was always to the more dramatic figure that it returned. There was a current in the passage, full and sweeping like the wind that went before the still, small Voice of God. Sarah was caught by it, urged forward, filled with it with each breath. But even as she lifted her foot she heard a woman’s voice in the room beyond. + 

“We’ve Mrs. Will here an’ all,” the landlady called, as she swam away. “She’ll see to you if there’s anything you want, I’m sure.” + 

She might just as well have slammed and locked the door in the old folks’ teeth. At once they made a simultaneous movement of recoil, stiffening themselves as if against attack. The spirit in the passage died down, leaving it filled to the ceiling with that heavy, chattering voice. Sarah was well away from the doorstep before she opened her mouth. + 

“Nay, I don’t know as I won’t go right on, thank ye, Mrs. Bond. I’m feeling a deal better already⁠—I am that. If I set down, I’ll likely not feel like getting up again, and I’ve a deal to see to in t’town.” + 

Mrs. Bond swam back, concerned and surprised, but Sarah was already well across the yard. Simon, when appealed to, said nothing but, “Nay, I reckon she’ll do,” and seemed equally bent upon getting himself away. They retreated hurriedly through the arch that led to the street, leaving Mrs. Bond to say, “Well, I never, now!” to the empty air. The man’s face came back to the window as they went, looking after this sudden retirement with a troubled frown. + 

The driver was still working at his car when he found his passenger suddenly at his side. He was a queer customer, he thought to himself, looking up at the moody expression on his handsome face. He had behaved like a boy on their early morning ride, continually stopping the car, and then hustling it on again. He had sung and whistled and shouted at people on the road, laughed without any apparent reason, and dug the unfortunate driver in the back. He was clean off it, the man thought, grinning and vexed by turn, and wondering when and where the expedition would end. People as lively as that at blush of dawn were simply asking for slaps before the sun was down. He had steadied a trifle when they reached the Witham road, but the queerest thing of all that he did was that checking behind the traps. The driver was sure he was cracked by the time they got to the town, and he was surer than ever when he came out now and told him to move the car. He might have refused if his fare had not been so big and broad, and if he had not already shown himself generous on the road. As it was, he found himself, after a moment of sulky surprise, helping to push the trap into the disputed place. He still wore his injured expression when he went back to his job, but it was wasted on his employer, who never looked his way. Instead, he was standing and staring at Simon’s crazy rig, and he smiled as he stared, but it was not a happy smile. Presently he, too, made his way to the arch, and disappeared into the crowded street. + 

The old folks had seemed in a terrible hurry to be gone, but, as a matter of fact, they halted as soon as they got outside. “I couldn’t ha’ gone in there whatever,” Sarah said, in an apologetic tone, and Simon nodded, looking anxiously up and down. + 

“If I could nobbut catch a sight o’ May,” he muttered worriedly, searching the crowd. “May’d see to you right off, and get you a snack o’ summat an’ all. I’ve Mr. Dent to see about chucking t’farm, and I’ve a two-three other things to do as well.” + 

But instead of May, who was nowhere to be seen, a man came shyly towards them from a neighbouring group. He was like Simon to look at, only younger and better clad, showing none of the other’s signs of trouble and hard toil. His voice was like Simon’s, too, when Simon was at his best, but Sarah stiffened when she heard him speak. + 

“You’ll not ha’ seen Fleming’s lass?” Simon asked, devouring the street, and Will swung about at once to cast his own glance over the press. + 

“She was by a minute since,” he said thoughtfully. “She can’t ha’ gone far.⁠ ⁠…” He hunted a moment longer, and turned shyly back. “Likely you’ll give us a call at Blindbeck this afternoon?” + 

Sarah said nothing in reply to the invitation, but Simon gave a nod. + 

“I could do wi’ a word wi’ you, Will, if you’re not throng. It’s about time we were thinking o’ making a change. Sarah’s bothered wi’ her eyes.” + 

“Nay, now, that’s bad news, to be sure.” Will was genuinely concerned. He glanced at Sarah kindly, though with a diffident air. “Happen a pair o’ glasses’ll fix you,” he said, in his gentle tones. There was a pause, and then he jerked his head towards the arch that led to the inn. “I left my missis behind there, talking to Mrs. Bond. If you’re thinking o’ seeing t’doctor, you’d best have a woman to come along.” + 

“I meant to ax May,” Simon said hurriedly, praying for May to spring out of the ground, and, as if by way of reply, she came out of a shop on the far side. He plunged forward, waving and calling her name, and she stopped, smiling, as he caught her by the arm. She was grave at once, however, when she heard what he had to say, and her eyes rested on Sarah with a troubled look. She gave a nod of comprehension when he pointed towards the arch, and, without waiting to hear more, crossed over to Sarah’s side. By the time the stranger appeared the women had vanished down the street, while the brothers were making their way to the market square. This was the second time that the Thornthwaites had fled at the sound of a name, and this time, as it happened, May was sent speeding away, too. + 

IV + 

May, however, was only thinking of how she could be of use, and was very cheery and pleasant all along the street. Already she had come across one or two pieces of news, and laughed about them to Sarah until Sarah was laughing, too. Once or twice they met somebody who had something else to tell, and they stood on the pavement together and thrashed the matter out. May’s laugh sounded young and gay, and a girlish colour came into her cheeks. The old figure beside her seemed to draw vitality from her generous warmth, her brave air which made an adventure of every commonplace of life. Sarah even rose to a joke or two on her own account, and was wonderfully heartened when they got to the doctor’s house. She would not hear of having a cup of tea or even a rest. Time enough for such things, she said with spirit, when they were through. + 

She had both of them, however, at the doctor’s, because he would not let her go away without. May took her into the dining-room by his orders, and found her an easy chair beside the fire. A parlourmaid brought a tray, and Sarah drank her tea cheerfully enough, soothed by the comfort and quiet and the presence of some sweet-smelling flower. The doctor had been kindness itself, and had felt a little depressed when he sent the women away. He did not know that the last thing that was in their minds as they sat by the fire was the terrible fact that Sarah was going blind. + 

They spoke of it, indeed, but only casually, as it were, before passing on to the greater thing at its back. Sarah’s sense of courtesy forced her at least to give the doctor a pat on the head. + 

“Ay, he was right kind,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “and I will say this for him that he seemed to know his job. I’ve had my doubts for a while there was summat badly wrong. I don’t know as it’s news to me, after all. As for yon operation he says might do summat for me, I doubt I’m over old. We’ve no brass for notions o’ that sort, neither, come to that.” + 

“There’s hospitals,” May said⁠—“homes and suchlike where they take you free. Plenty of folk go to ’em, even at your age, and they’d see to you well enough, I’m sure.” + 

“Ay, doctor said that an’ all,” Sarah assented, though in an uninterested tone. “But I’d only take badly to they sort o’ spots now,” she added, sipping her tea. “I’d be marching out agen, likely, as soon as ever I’d set my foot inside of the door.” + 

“They say folks settle wonderfully when they’ve made up their minds. It’s worth a bit of trouble, if they put you right.” + 

“Happen,” Sarah said casually, and withdrew it at once. “I don’t know as it is.” + 

“You’re down, that’s what it is. You’ll feel better after a bit.” + 

“I don’t know as I shall.” + 

“You’ll feel different about it in a day or two. You’d come through it right as a bobbin. You’ve pluck enough for ten.” + 

“Ay, well, I can’t settle it one way or t’other,” Sarah said stubbornly, turning a deaf ear. “Things is a bit ham-sam just now,” she added evasively, fiddling with her cup, and wondering why she could not bring herself to announce that they were leaving the farm. But as long as they did not speak of it, it was just as if nothing had happened, as though the words which had framed the decision had never been said. And yet at that very moment Simon was probably telling Will and Mr. Dent, and the news would be racing its way round Witham until it came to Eliza’s ear.⁠ ⁠… + 

“We’ll work it some way,” May urged, not knowing of the big pause that had come into Sarah’s life. “You may have to get a word put in for you, but that’s easy done. I’ll see the Squire and Mrs. Wilson and maybe a few more, and it’ll be all fixed up without you putting yourself about.” + 

“You’re right kind, you are that.” + 

“It’s worth it,” May said again. + 

“Ay⁠ ⁠… I don’t know⁠ ⁠…” Sarah answered her absently, and then sat up straight. “It’d ha’ been worth it once,” she broke out suddenly, as if letting herself go. “There was a time when I’d a deal sooner ha’ been dead than blind, but it don’t matter much now. There’s not that much left as I care to look at, I’m sure. It’s the eyes make the heart sore more nor half the time. But I’d ha’ felt badly about it if Geordie was coming back, and I couldn’t ha’ framed to see his face.” + 

May said⁠—“It’s best not to think of such things,” as cheerfully as she could, but her own face clouded as she spoke, and suddenly she looked old. Here was the old trouble, if the doctor had known, that was still big enough to make the new one seem almost small. Blindness was not so dreadful a thing to these two women, who had both of them lost the light of their eyes so long before. Long ago they had known what it was to rise and see no shine in the day, no blue in the sea for May who had lost her lover, no sun in the sky for Sarah without her child. + 

It was twenty years now since Geordie had gone away, clearing out overseas as casually as if into the next field. Eliza’s eldest from Blindbeck had gone as well, as like him in face and voice as if hatched in the same nest. They were too lively, too restless for the calm machinery of English country life, and when the call came from over the ocean they had vanished in a night. Canada, which has so many links with Westmorland now, seemed farther away then than the world beyond the grave. Death at least left you with bones in a green yard and a stone with a graven name, but Canada made you childless, and there was no sign of your grief beneath the church’s wall. Geordie had written, indeed, from time to time, but though the letters were light enough on the top, there was heartache underneath. He was a failure there, they gathered, after a while, just as they were failures here; as if the curse of the Sandholes luck had followed even across the sea, Jim was a failure, too, as far as they knew, though their impression of Jim’s doings was always vague. His very name on the page seemed to have the trick of dissolving itself in invisible ink, and his own letters were never answered and barely even read. He had been fond of his aunt, but Sarah had given him only the scantiest tolerance in return. Sarah, indeed, would not have cared if Jim had been burning in everlasting fire.⁠ ⁠… + 

“We’d a letter from Geordie a month back,” she said suddenly, after the pause, “begging the loan of a pound o’ two to fetch him home.” + 

May started a little, and the colour came back to her cheek. It was a long time now since anything fresh about Geordie had come her way. Once she had been in the habit of going to Sandholes for news, asking for it by indirect methods of which she was still rather ashamed. Sarah had been jealous of her in those days and grudged her every word; and since she had stopped being jealous there had been next to nothing to grudge.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Ay, he axed for his fare, but we hadn’t got it to send. I don’t know as we want him, neither, if he can’t shape better than that.” + 

May felt her heart shake as she leaned forward, clasping her hands. + 

“I’ve a bit put by I could spare,” she began, with a thrill in her voice. “It could go from you, Mrs. Thornthet⁠—he need never know. You’ve only to say the word, and you can have it when you want.” + 

A twinge of the ancient jealousy caught suddenly at Sarah’s heart. With difficulty she remembered May’s kindness and the long bond of the years. + 

“I’ll not spend any lass’s savings on my lad!” she answered roughly, and then softened again. “Nay, May, my girl, you mean well enough, but it wain’t do. Losh save us! Hasn’t he done badly enough by you, as it is?” she added grimly. “You should ha’ been wed this many a long year, instead o’ hanging on for the likes o’ him!” + 

“I doubt I’d never have married in any case,” May said. “I don’t know as I’d ever have made up my mind to leave my dad.” + 

“You’d ha’ wed right enough but for Geordie⁠—dad or no dad!” Sarah scoffed. “You’re the sort as is meant to be wed, from the start. Nay, he’s spoilt your life, and no doubt about it, but there’s no sense in lossing the can because you’ve gone and spilt the milk. Say you sent him the brass, and he come back without a cent, what’d be the end o’ the business then? You’d wed him, I’ll be bound⁠—for pity, if for nowt else. Your father’ll likely leave you a nice bit, and you’d get along on that, but who’s to say how Geordie’d frame after all these years? Happen he’s lost the habit o’ work by now, and it’ll be a deal more likely than not if he’s taken to drink.” + 

“Geordie wasn’t that sort.” May shook her head. “He’ll not have taken to drink, not he!” + 

“Folks change out of all knowledge⁠—ay, and inside as well as out.” + 

“Not if they’re made right,” May said stubbornly, “and Geordie was all right. He was a daft mafflin, I’ll give you that, always playing jokes and the like, but it was just the life in him⁠—nowt else. He was a fine lad then, in spite of it all, and I don’t mind swearing that he’s a fine man now.” + 

“Ay,” Sarah said slowly, “fine enough, to be sure! A fine lad to leave his folks for t’far side o’ the world wi’ never a word! A fine man as can’t look to himself at forty, let alone give his father and mother a bit o’ help!⁠ ⁠… Nay, my lass, don’t you talk to me!” she finished brusquely. “We’ve thought a deal o’ Geordie, me and Simon and you, but I reckon he’s nowt to crack on, all the same!” + 

“You’d think different when he was back,” May pleaded⁠—“I’m sure you would. And you needn’t fret about me if that’s all there is in the road. I made up my mind long since as I shouldn’t wed. But I’d be rarely glad, all the same, to have had a hand in fetching him home.” + 

“You’re real good, as I said, but it’s over late.” She paused a moment and then went on again. “Letter went a couple o’ week ago.” + 

The tears came into May’s eyes. + 

“You don’t mean as you said him no? Eh, Mrs. Thornthet, but I’m sorry to hear that!” + 

“Yon sort o’ thing’s best answered right off.” + 

For a moment or two May put her hand to her face. “Eh, but what a pity!” she murmured, after a while. “What does it matter whose brass fetches him home?” + 

“It matters to me.” + 

“It matters a deal more that you’re breaking your heart⁠—” + 

“Nay, then, I’m not!⁠ ⁠… Ay, well, then, what if I be?” + 

“Let me get the brass right off!” May said, in a coaxing tone. “Let me⁠—do now! Send it to him today.” + 

“Nay.” + 

“You’ve got it into your head he’s different, but I’ll swear you’re wrong! Different in looks, maybe, but he’ll be none the worse for that. He always framed to be a fine figure of a man when he was set. You’d be as throng wi’ him as a clockie hen wi’ a pot egg.” + 

Sarah snorted scorn, but her face softened a little. + 

“He’s forty, but I’ll be bound he hasn’t changed. I’ll be bound he’s nobbut the same merry lad inside.” + 

“Happen none the better for that.” + 

“Geordie isn’t the sort as grows old⁠—Geordie an’ Jim⁠—” + 

“Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!” Sarah flared, and the other laughed. + 

“It’s hard to think of ’em apart even now⁠—they were that like. Why, I’ve mixed ’em myself, over and over again, and fine fun it was for them, to be sure!” + 

“I never mixed ’em!” Sarah snapped, with a blind glare. “I never see a scrap o’ likeness myself.” + 

“Why, the whole countryside couldn’t tell ’em apart⁠—school-folk an’ all! ‘Twasn’t only their faces was like; ’twas their voices, too.” + 

“Hold your whisht!” + 

“You’ll remember yon calls they had, Geordie an’ Jim⁠—” + 

“Whisht, I tell ye!” There was something scared as well as angry in Sarah’s tone, and May was hushed into silence in spite of herself. “Jim was sweet on you, too,” the old woman went on surlily, after a pause. “If there wasn’t that much to choose between ’em, why didn’t you choose him?” + 

“There was all the world to choose between them, when it come to it,” May said smiling, but with tears in her voice. “Once Geordie’d kissed me, I never mixed ’em up again!” + 

The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah’s face. She tried to turn it away, with the pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot tell what others may be reading there in spite of their will. May, however, was looking away from her into the past. + 

“Not but what Jim was a rare good sort,” she was saying, with the tenderness of a woman towards a lover who once might have been and just was not. “Eh, and how fond he was of you, Mrs. Thornthet!” she added, turning again. “No lad could ha’ thought more of his own mother than he did of you.” + 

“I wanted nowt wi’ his fondness,” Sarah said in a hard tone. “And I want no mewling about him now, as I said afore!” + 

“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 brass!” 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 space. 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 space 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, sturdy 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 buttons, 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 space 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 glass. 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 æon of time would the sea return. + 

Sarah and May had their dinner together in a café 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 anticipation 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 newfangled 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 multitudinous 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-class 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 muff 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 passed she spoke to several people in a noisy, hearty voice, that seemed to have a blustering 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 assistance 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. “Nobody 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 passed 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’ brass to Blindbeck⁠ ⁠… ay, Blindbeck’s plenty o’ brass!” 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—“nobbut 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 lasses 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 assumed that you were as strong as a horse, even if you lay on your deathbed 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’ suchlike tales.” + 

“Yes, but we did go to the doctor’s!” May broke out warmly, goaded into speech. “Mrs. Thornthwaite’s bothered with her eyes.” + 

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 class, but especially so in this. Even Mrs. Will was shocked momentarily into quiet. Her fork stayed arrested in midair, halfway 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 motorcars 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 brass 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 nobbut 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 suchlike 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 passionless 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 titters 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 coarse 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 reasserted 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 innyard, 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 hearse,” 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 hearse⁠—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 today 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 pass 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 circumstances 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 hearse 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 superstition, that the Town Hall chimes should be playing “There is no luck about the house” just as he stepped inside. + 

“It was nobbut 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 hearse, 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 scrape 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 “hearse.” 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. + 

“Ay, well, you’ve likely heard all this before,” he finished lamely in the middle of a speech, conscious that he had missed his point, though without being able to say how. “We’ve had a bad year this year an’ all, and I can’t see as it’s any use holding on. Me and my missis fixed it up as we come in, so if you’ll take my notice, sir, we’ll go next spring.” + 

“Your wife’s in town, is she?” Dent asked. For some reason he looked again at the window from which he had waved. “How does she take the thought of leaving the farm?” + 

“Well, sir, we’ll both feel it, after all these years, but I don’t know as it’s any use calling out. I put it to her as we’d better quit, and she agreed to it right off.” + 

“I wish you’d brought her along,” the agent said, still speaking in a detached tone. There were some notes on the table within reach of his hand, and he glanced thoughtfully at them as he spoke. + 

Simon stiffened a little, and looked surprised. “I’m speaking for both on us, sir, as I said before.” + 

“Of course, Simon,” Dent said, rousing himself. “I know that. But I’d have liked a word with her, all the same.” His glance went back to the notes, and he smiled as if at his own thoughts.⁠ ⁠… “And so you’ve really made up your minds that you’d better go?” + 

“Haven’t I been saying so, sir, all along?” Simon was really injured now, and his wounded dignity showed in his tone. Mr. Dent was taking the whole thing far too easily, he thought. First of all, he did not seem to be listening as much as he might, and then, when the notice was offered, he actually smiled! Tenants of forty years’ standing do not look to have their departure speeded with smiles. Simon thought it heartless, to say the least, and only to be excused because Mr. Dent did not know what they had to face. They had not been very satisfactory tenants, of course⁠—even Simon admitted that⁠—and it was more than likely that the agent was rather relieved. At least he was saved the unpleasant task of turning them out, a duty which, as Simon knew, had seemed imminent more than once. But they were respectable folk of good stock, and they were not entirely to blame because they were failures, too. Gravity was their due, anyhow, if not sympathy, but Mr. Dent, on this solemn occasion, seemed to be failing them in both. + 

“Of course you know you’re late with your notice?” he observed presently, looking up. “You ought to have made up your minds a couple of months ago.” + 

“Ay, we’re late, I know, but we weren’t thinking of owt o’ the sort then. I’m sorry if we’ve put you about, but you’ll not have that much trouble in getting rid of the farm. It’s nobbut a small spot, you’ll think on. It’ll let right off the reel.” + 

“It’s been going back a long while, though,” Dent said thoughtfully, and then felt penitent as the old man flushed. Just for the moment he had forgotten that Simon was in the room. + 

“Of course I know you’ve had pretty rough luck,” he went on hastily, trying to cover it up. “Sandholes holds the record for every sort of mischance. It sounds like one of the old fairytales,” he added, laughing⁠—“curses and all that!⁠ ⁠… But I can’t help thinking it would have been better for everybody if there had been a change earlier on.” + 

“Ay, well, you’ve gitten your change now, and no mistake about it!” Simon retorted angrily, deeply hurt. There was something wrong with the scene, though he could not tell what it was. He only knew that he had not expected it to go in the very least like this. + 

“It should have been made long since if it was to do you any good.⁠ ⁠…” Dent did not seem to notice that there was anything amiss. He sat, tapping the table, deep in thought, while Simon seethed.⁠ ⁠… “Sure you couldn’t put on for another year?” + 

This change of front upset his visitor so completely that he dropped his hat. He sat glaring at Mr. Dent with a dropped mouth. + 

“Nay, then, I just couldn’t!” he snapped at last, wondering whether he was on his head or his heels. “Losh save us!” he added angrily, “haven’t I tellt you I meant to gang ever since I come in? It’ll take me all my time to hang on till spring, as it is.” + 

“You’ve run it as close as that?” Dent enquired, and Simon gave a grunt. + 

“Ay, and I’m not the first as has done it, neither!” + 

“Couldn’t your Blindbeck brother see to give you a hand? He’s done well for himself, I should say, and his children are getting on.” + 

“He’s given us a hand more than once already, has Will, but there’s no sense in throwing good money after bad. We’ll have to quit next year, if we don’t this. Farm’s going back, as you say, and I’m over old to pull it round. I can’t keep going forever, nay, nor my missis, neither.” + 

He remembered Sarah’s eyes as he spoke, and how they were enough to clinch the matter in themselves, but he was too offended even to mention them by now. There was no telling today how Mr. Dent would take the tragic news. He had smiled and looked cheerful over the notice to quit, but Simon felt he would not be able to bear it if he smiled at Sarah’s eyes. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep a hold on himself, as it was⁠—first of all hearing that he ought to have gone long since, and then being told to stop when he’d settled to clear out! + 

The trend of his injured thought must have reached the other at last, for he roused himself to look at his sulky face. + 

“You needn’t think I’m trying to shove the place down your throat!” he said, with a laugh. “But I certainly thought you’d rather be stopping on!” + 

Simon felt a little appeased, though he took care not to show any sign. He growled miserably that they had never intended to quit except under a coffin-lid. + 

“This is where you want a lad of your own to take hold⁠—a lad with a good wife who would be able to see to you both. You’ve no news, I suppose, of that son of yours that went overseas?” + 

“A word or two, now and then⁠—nowt more. Nowt as’d set you running across t’countryside to hear.” + 

“No chance of getting him home again, is there?” Dent enquired, and Simon stared at the floor and shook his head. He must have felt a change in the atmosphere, however, for suddenly he began to repeat what Sarah had told May, how Geordie had written for money, and there had been none to send. The words came easily after he had made a start, and for the time being he forgot his resentment and injured-tenant’s pride. + 

“I reckon you know, sir, how it all come about. There’ll ha’ been plenty o’ folk ready to tell you, I’ll be bound, and them as knowed least’ll likely ha’ tellt you most. We never had but the one lad, Sarah and me, and, by Gox! but he was a limb! The queer thing was that my brother Will’s eldest should ha’ been the very marrow o’ mine⁠—looks, voice, ways, ay, and character an’ all. Will and me were whyet enough lads, I’m sure; it was terble strange we should breed a pair o’ rattlehorns like yon. You couldn’t rightly say there was any harm to ’em, but they were that wick they mun always be making a stir. Being that like, too, helped ’em rarely when there was chanst o’ their getting catched. Each on ’em had a call for telling when he was about. Jim’s was a heron like, but Geordie’s was nobbut a gull⁠—” + 

This time it was his own glance that went to the window, as again he remembered the bird gone out to the waves. When Dent spoke, his mind came back from its flight with a tiny jerk. + 

“Then they made off to Canada, didn’t they, the two lads? You told me something about it when I first came.” + 

“Ay, they cleared off in a night without a word or owt, and they’ve never done no good from then to this. Sarah sticks to it Geordie would never ha’ gone at all if it hadn’t been for Jim, and Will’s missis sticks to it t’other way about. I reckon there was nowt to choose between ’em myself, but my missis never could abide poor Jim. He was that set on her, though, there was no keeping him off the spot. Right cruel she was to him sometimes, but she couldn’t drive him off. He’d just make off laughing and whistling, and turn up again next day. Of course, she was bound to have her knife into him, for his mother’s sake. She and Eliza have always been fit to scratch at each other all their lives.” + 

“Long enough to finish any feud, surely, and a bit over? It’s a pity they can’t bury the hatchet and make friends.” + 

“They’ll happen make friends when the rabbit makes friends wi’ the ferret,” Simon said grimly, “and the blackbird wi’ the cat! I don’t say Sarah isn’t to blame in some ways, but she’s had a deal to put up wi’, all the same. There’s summat about Eliza as sets you fair bilin’ inside your bones! It’s like as if she’d made up her mind to pipe Sarah’s eye straight from the very start. She never said ay to Will, for one thing, till Sarah and me had our wedding-day fixed, and then danged if she didn’t make up her mind to get wed that day an’ all! She fixed same church, same parson, same day and same time⁠—ay, an’ there’s some folk say she’d ha’ fixed on t’same man if she’d gitten chanst!” He paused for a moment to chuckle when he had said that, but he was too bitter to let his vanity dwell on it for long. “She tellt parson it was a double wedding or summat o’ the sort, but she never let wit on’t to Sarah and me until she was fair inside door. Sarah and me walked to kirk arm in arm, wi’ nowt very much by-ordinar’ on our backs; but Eliza come scampering up in a carriage and pair, donned up in a white gown and wi’ a gert, waggling veil. Will was that shammed on it all he couldn’t abide to look me in t’face, but there, I reckon he couldn’t help hisself, poor lad! Sarah was that wild I could feel her fair dodderin’ wi’ rage as we stood alongside at chancel-step. She was that mad she could hardly shape to get her tongue round Weddin’-Service or owt, and when we was in t’vestry I see her clump both her feet on the tail of Eliza’s gown. She would have it nobody knew she was as much as getting wed at all⁠—they were that busy gawping at Eliza and her veil. She was a fine, strapping lass, Eliza was, and I’d a deal o’ work keeping my eyes off’n her myself!⁠ ⁠… ay, and I won’t say but what she give me a sheep’s eye or so at the back o’ Will as well.⁠ ⁠…” He chuckled again, and his face became suddenly youthful, with a roguish eye. “But yon was no way o’ starting in friendly, was it, Mr. Dent? + 

“Ay, well, things has gone on like that atween ’em more or less ever since, and I won’t say but Sarah’s gitten a bit of her own back when she’s gitten chanst. Will having all the luck and suchlike hasn’t made things better, neither. Blindbeck’s ganged up and Sandholes has ganged down⁠—ay, and seems like to hit bottom afore it stops! Will and me have hung together all along, but the women have always been at each other’s throats. It riled Eliza Jim being always at our spot, and thinking a deal more o’ Sarah than he did of her. Neither on ’em could break him of it, whatever they said or did. He always stuck to it Sandholes was his home by rights.” + 

“Pity the two of them aren’t here to help you now,” Dent said. “Those runabout lads often make fine men.” + 

“Nay, I doubt they’ve not made much out, anyway round.” Simon shook his head. “Likely they’re best where they be,” he said, as Sarah had said on the road in. He sat silent a moment longer for politeness’ sake, and then was stopped again as he rose to go. + 

“May I enquire what you intend to do when you leave the farm?” + 

The old man’s face had brightened as he talked, but now the shadow came over it again. + 

“I can’t rightly tell, sir, till I’ve had a word wi’ Will, but anyway he’ll not let us come to want. He’s offered us a home at Blindbeck afore now, but I reckon his missis’d have summat to say to that. Ay, and mine an’ all!” he added, with a fresh attempt at a laugh. “There’d be lile or nowt done on t’farm, I reckon, if it ever come about. It’d take the lot on us all our time to keep them two apart!” + 

Again, as he finished, he remembered Sarah’s eyes, and once again he let the opportunity pass. He was on his feet now, anxious to get away, and there seemed little use in prolonging this evil hour. Mr. Dent would think they were forever whingeing and whining and like enough calling out before they were hurt.⁠ ⁠… He moved hurriedly to the door, conscious of a sense of relief as well as of loss, and Sarah’s eyes missed their final chance of getting into the talk.⁠ ⁠… + 

“You’re likely throng, sir,” he finished, “and I’ll not keep you.” He put a hand to the latch. “Anyway, you’ll kindly take it as we’ll quit next year.” + 

Dent said⁠—“No, Simon, I shan’t do anything of the sort!” and laughed when the other shot round on him again with open mouth. His expression was grave, however, as he ended his speech. “I want you to think it over a bit first.” + 

Simon felt his head going round for the second time. The red came into his thin face. + 

“I don’t rightly know what you’re driving at, sir,” he said, with a dignified air. “I reckon I can give in my notice same as anybody else?” + 

“Oh, Lord, yes, Simon! Of course.” Dent’s eyes went back to the notes. “Yes, of course you can.” + 

“Ay, well, then?” Simon demanded stiffly. “What’s all this stir?” + 

“Well,⁠ ⁠… it’s like this, you see⁠ ⁠… you’ve missed your time. It was due a couple of months back, as I said before.” + 

“Ay, but you’re not that hard and fast about notice, as a rule! Tom Robison did t’same thing last year, you’ll think on, and you let it pass. Seems to me you’re by way of having a joke wi’ me, sir,” he added, in a pitiful tone, “and I don’t know as it’s kind, seeing how I’m placed.” + 

Dent jumped to his feet and came across to lay a hand on his arm. + 

“It’s only that I’ve a feeling you’ll change your mind, Simon,” he said earnestly, “and you’ll be sorry if you’ve spread it about that you’re going to quit. A week, say⁠—a week won’t make that much difference, will it? Can’t you let it stand over another week?” + 

“You said a minute back ’twas a pity we’d stopped so long! I can’t make out what you’re at, Mr. Dent⁠—I’m danged if I can!” + 

The agent laughed and left him to stroll back again to the window, where he stood looking down into the full street. + 

“Perhaps we’re neither of us as clear in our minds as we might be!” he observed, with a cryptic smile. “The weather, perhaps; it’s only a dreary day. I’m not one of the folks who like November grey.” + 

“Tides is big an’ all,” Simon found himself saying, unable to resist the lure. “We’ve had t’watter up agen t’wall every night this week. Last night I went out for a look afore it was dark, but it was that thick it was all I could do to tell it was there at all. There was just summat grey-like lifting under my nose; but, by Gox! it was deep enough for all it was so whyet!” + 

Dent shivered at the drear little picture which the other had conjured up. + 

“I don’t know how you sleep,” he said, “perched on the edge of things like that! It would give me fits to have the sea knocking twice a day at my back door.” + 

“Ay, it knocks,” Simon said slowly, with a thoughtful air. “There’s whiles you’d fair think it was axing for somebody to come out.⁠ ⁠… You’ll mind yon time you were near catched by the tide?” he went on, after a pause. “Eh, man, but I was in a terble tew yon night!” + 

“It was my own fault,” Dent laughed⁠—“not that it was any the nicer for that! I knew the time of the tide, but I’d forgotten the time of day. It was a day something like this, much the same dismal colour all through. Lord, no!” He shivered again. “I’ve not forgotten, not I! I’ll never forget pounding away from that horrible wave, and finding myself, quite without knowing it, back below the farm!” + 

“It was my missis saved you that night,” Simon said, “and a near shave it was an’ all! Tide would ha’ got you even then if it hadn’t been for her. We heard you hollerin’ and came out to look, but we couldn’t see nowt, it was that dark. I thought we’d fancied it like, as we didn’t hear no more, but Sarah wouldn’t hear of owt o’ the sort. She would have it she could see you liggin’ at bottom o’ t’bank, and she give me no peace till I’d crammelled down to look.” + 

“Well, you may be sure I’m grateful enough,” the agent said, as they shook hands. “I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy a death like that. I hope it’s been put to the credit side of her account.” + 

He followed this caller out as he had done the last, and again, leaning over the railing, he called “Good luck!” Simon, looking up, full of resentment, saw the face above him bright with smiles. He went out with offended dignity written in every line. + 