"Well, I'm very 'greeable for 'er to 'av 'im, 'cos I think 'e's a nice
boy."
"And Gentle Jane is a nice farm and you've four other maidens? Well, I
dunno as I shall want to lose 'er as soon as I get 'er, still we can
settle that by and by."
*CHAPTER IV*
A few days, spent in trundling herself about the ward, and Mrs. Byron
was ready for the long journey, over Big Hill and down to the sea.
Leadville, who saw in her return the extinction of his last hope, had
not the heart to come for her.
"Pretty pickle I should look," he said to Mrs. Tom, "drivin' missus 'ome
sittin' up in that trolly, showin' 'erself off like that. Better fit
she should 'av Mr. Brenton's covered cart and cover 'erself up. Any
one'd think she'd want to 'ide 'er affliction."
"You fancy S'bina 'idin' of it?" said Mrs. Tom, who had suggested his
going. "She'll be quite proud for people to see 'er goin' about with
'er poor old stumps. Leavin' out 'er laigs, you knaw, she's as strong as
ever."
When he frowned Byron's black brows came together in an ominous line.
"Strong as ever?" he said, "that's different from what Dr. Derek told
me. He give me no encouragement as she'll make old bones."
"I wouldn't give much for that, then. She'll be like a barley weed,
always dyin' and never dead." She had been cleaning the house in
readiness for Mrs. Byron's return; and now, her labours ended, was
drinking a cup of tea with the master of it. "They old Rosevears was
long-livin' and they do say, she's more like Old Squire than either Tom
or Constantine be. 'Oo be 'ee gwine send in for 'er?"
"Jim can go in for 'er; there is two or three things wanted into
Shoppe"--this was another hamlet in the widespread parish--"and 'e can
bring 'em 'ome."
"I'm sorry you bain't goin'. You're the one ought to fetch 'er."
"I've got a very poor 'eart for that sort of thing and this'll be worse
than Hobby-horse goin' to Traytor."
"Iss," nodded Mrs. Tom. "I bet everybody'll turn out to give S'bina a
welcome 'ome. After all, your ways bain't like our ways."
Leadville could not let that pass. "I might 'a 'bin born down east o'
Truro, still I can't tell you whether I was or no. But I feel in my
bones an' veins that I'm no 'foreigner.' Couldn't fancy this place as I
do if it wadn't so."
"'Tis your misfortune," said Mrs. Tom, taking her cloak from the
door-peg, "as you fancy it so. If you was one of we, you'd act
different."
Mrs. Byron had a bright day for her journey, a day with but one cloud.
The staff of the hospital had gathered to see her start and when, on her
trolly, and followed by her luggage and a certain long wooden box, oddly
suggestive of a shortened coffin, she rolled herself down the hall and
into the roadway, they broke into a cheer. The gallant bearing of this
mutilated creature had drawn from them an emotional response. The
beauty of it, the poignancy, touched them. Men pressed forward to offer
their help and tears stood in the eyes of the women. That was the
spirit, this elemental courage, this defiance of unhappy fate. Yes,
Sabina was indeed true descendant of Old Squire--he to whom men for so
long had given their respect.
In the road, drawn up and waiting, stood the farm wagon. Jim Rosevear,
with a proper sense of the ceremonial nature of the occasion, had
plaited the horses' manes and tails with coloured worsteds. The brass
harness twinkled in the sun and the cart-horses had been groomed until
their coats were nearly as bright. Sabina, occupied with her trolly,
which was showing a tendency to turn a little to the left, was not
immediately aware that the driver was not her husband. Not indeed until
the trolly had been lifted to its place on the floor of the wagon and
secured by ropes, was she at liberty to look about.
When she saw who was come for her she leaned forward in the cone.
"Where's the maister to?" she asked.
Jim, who was getting ready to start, looked over his shoulder. "He's
gone fishin'."
"Fishin'?" She had thought he might have gone on business down one of
the many crooked streets of the little town, business from which he
would return in time to drive her home.
"Fishin' for bass on the Head."
"Whatever took'n in the 'ead to do that to-day?" she said and dwelt for
a moment on the incomprehensible nature of man. Strange that Leadville
should not want to share her triumph, the triumph of the woman who
belonged to him, who was flesh of his flesh; to share this triumph which
was, in part, his. She had been in excellent spirits, but his absence
dashed them. It required the manifested goodwill of the people in the
streets to restore her equanimity.
In spite of this drawback, however, her progress was, in its way, royal.
Throned in the wagon she passed slowly along the main road. Placed thus
high and with trunk and head emerging from the wicker cone like an
amazing flower, she was undoubtedly a queer figure; but the people who
came running up the lanes and out of the houses along the route, to give
her the blessing of their good wishes, missed the queerness. They had
known her all the forty years of her life. She was part of the setting
in which they played their humble parts. A little prejudiced in her
favour through long association, this display of primitive courage moved
them. They welcomed it as in keeping with the family tradition, as
something worthy, and they offered it the kind encouragement of hearty
handshakes and good words.
"I be pretty an' glad to see yer come 'ome again, ma'am. Terrible,
terrible accident, you must 'av 'ad; still you don't seem to make much
of't. Mary Elizabeth's brought 'ee a few lilies."
"That trolly be a clever thought of yours, Mrs. Byron. I never see
nothing like it before."
"I reckon you've 'ad a draggin' time, ma'am. We'm all glad to 'av 'ee
back again."
"Do 'ee take and drink up this cup of milk and eat a bit of yeller cake
or 'ee'll be faintin' before 'ee come to Trevorrick," said a farmer's
wife.
"If 'ee'd like a glass of wine now, you've only to say the word, and you
can 'av it," interposed the landlord of the Dolphin; "I'd be proud to
serve 'ee."
"I be come 'ome," said Sabina to her charioteer as they jogged on and
her voice had a contented ring. She had forgotten the disappointment of
Leadville's absence. She was come back to her own people and her own
place and she was welcome.
The young man lifted a smiling face and she remembered that this was the
'pretty boy' who was courting her niece. She looked at him with
interest. He was certainly good-looking, definitely so, a tall slim
youth with a fine profile, deeply-set dark-blue eyes, black hair and a
small tawny moustache. She wondered how the courtship was progressing.
Gray, with cloudy hair about a wind-flower face, would make a charming
bride. Sabina's thoughts ran nimbly forward. She saw the young couple
housed at Wastralls, Rosevear working the farm under her direction and
the old cradle once more in use. The prospect promised her an autumn
happiness. Wonderful indeed, the way in which the wind is tempered to
the shorn!
When the farm cart turned off the highway by St. Cadic Mill, Sabina
found Constantine Rosevear and his wife waiting by the roadside. The
big florid man, though he had wife and three grown sons, had never been
able to forget that Sabina was the woman he should have married. His
Betsey was all right but, about Sabina, lingered the glamour of romance.
"I been in terrible fear," he told her simply, "and I'm 'avin' holiday
to-day. If you don't mind I'll walk down to Wastralls with you. You
don't know 'ow glad I be to see ye 'ome again and lookin' so well too."
Sabina's heart beat irregularly for a moment. If only Leadville would
talk to her like this! She comforted herself with the thought that his
being undemonstrative did not mean he was unfeeling. Words did not come
easily to him, but still waters run deep.
The cottagers about the smithy threw more flowers into the cart. "Might
be May Day," as Sabina said, with her happy smile. At Hember, Tom
Rosevear was waiting with four of his daughters. "Mother's down to
Wastralls wi' Gray," he said and the blooming girls, the so-called
nieces, raised their young voices in affectionate greeting. 'Aunt
S'bina' had been the fairy godmother of the family, always willing to
abet them in any piece of innocent fun. They were sincerely glad to
have her back.
The drive had been long for one just out of hospital, but the kindliness
of friends and neighbours had proved a stimulant. When the wagon turned
into the yard of Wastralls, however, Sabina was almost too tired to note
the changes that had been made. The absence of the honeysuckle caused
the porch to look bare, the old sheepdog was no longer lying in the sun;
but Leadville had come back from the fishing and was ready to lift her
down. At sight of him the tired face brightened. "I'm glad to come
'ome again," she said.
The man had been standing idly by the door. Having drawn nothing out of
the sea he had come back in a mood which was not uninfluenced by his
lack of success. Everything had gone wrong, his hopes were dashed, his
plans had miscarried and he searched the landscape in vain for any hope
of change. Sabina was well again, she had already asserted her will
with regard to the farm and before him lay a future as dreary as the
past.
He lifted his eyes as the beflowered cortege rolled into the yard. He
had expected a sort of chair and the trolly with its basket-work cone
was an unpleasant surprise; while the sight of his wife, in brightly
coloured gown and pink sunbonnet, swelling out of it like a monstrous
fruit, completed his dismay. She was a figure of fun, a queer oddity,
repellent as something out of nature. The bravery that faced the
sunshine as simply as in the days of its strength did not appeal to him,
he was only conscious of the deformity. His heart contracted, emptied
itself of good-will, then slowly filled again--but not with kindliness.
The business of unloading occupied the men for some minutes and Mrs.
Rosevear, taking the parcels, handed them to her daughter.
"What a lovely lot o' flowers. I should think every garden for miles
round will be bare."
"Take care o' that box," cried Sabina, suddenly, as they lifted out the
case that was suggestive of a coffin. "I value that."
"Where be 'ee gwine put it, auntie?"
"In the cupboard in the big parlour."
"What 'av 'ee got in it?"
"Ah, my dear, ask me no questions and I tell 'ee no lies."
"'Ere, I'll take that," said Mrs. Tom, intervening, "I know where it got
to be put. 'Tis what you told me of, S'bina?"
Mrs. Byron nodded. "Iss, I've brought it back wi' me. Doctor said I
was maaeze to do it; but I said I would, an' I 'av."
A meal was ready on the kitchen table, a piece of stout wood which had
weathered the use and elbow-grease of more than a century. This room
had been for three generations the gathering-place of the family.
Innumerable savoury meals had been cooked on the slab range; hams in a
succession longer than that of the Kings of England had been lifted from
the rafter hooks and, after the buffetings of winter and the scorch of
summer, men had taken their ease on the bench while women made and
mended. Old tales had been told and retold by deep voices, tales of
witches, of wreckers, of people 'pisky-led'n'; and the sound of them
lingered in the dim corners. They were waiting for the new generation
which should utter once more the familiar words and keep alive the
traditions.
"I never thought I should ever be back 'ere any more," said Sabina,
contentedly, as she ran her trolly up to the table and, by a contrivance
similar to that on a dentist's chair, reduced her height to a sitting
level. "It do seem good to be 'ome. Everything look so natural."
"Well, 'twould be funny if it didn't," said Mrs. Rosevear, helping the
meat.
"Don't seem as if I'd been all that time away."
"I expect it do to Leadville."