"Afraid o' pore Maaggie?"
He took it in. He wondered. He thought he understood.
"Maaggie sall goa. I'll 'ave anoother. An' yo sall 'ave a yooung laass
t' waait on yo. Ef it's Maaggie, shea sall nat stand in yore road."
"It isn't Maggie--altogether."
"Than--for Gawd's saake, loove, what is it?"
She sobbed. "It's everything. It's something in this house--in this
room."
He looked at her gravely now.
"Naw," he said slowly, "'tis noon o' thawse things. It's mae. It's mae
yo're afraid of. Yo think I med bae too roough with yo."
But at that she cried out with a little tender cry and pressed close
to him.
"No--no--no--it isn't you. It isn't. It couldn't be."
He crushed her in his arms. His mouth clung to her face and passed
over it and covered it with kisses.
"Am I too roough? Tall mae--tall mae."
"No," she whispered.
He pushed back her hat from her forehead, kissing her hair. She took
off her hat and flung it on the floor.
His voice came fast and thick.
"Kiss mae back ef yo loove mae."
She kissed him. She stiffened and leaned back in the crook of his arm
that held her.
His senses swam. He grasped her as if he would have lifted her bodily
from the floor. She was light in his arms as a child. He had turned
her from the window.
He looked fiercely round the room that shut them in. His eyes lowered;
they fixed themselves on the bed with its white counterpane. They
saw under the white counterpane the dead body of his father stretched
there, and the stain on the grim beard tilted to the ceiling.
He loosed her and pushed her from him.
"We moost coom out o' this," he muttered.
He pushed her from the room, gently, with a hand on her shoulder, and
made her go before him down the stairs.
He went back into the room to pick up her hat.
He found her waiting for him, looking back, at the turn of the stair
where John Greatorex's coffin had stuck in the corner of the wall.
"Jim--I'm so frightened," she said.
"Ay. Yo'll bae all right downstairs."
They stood in the kitchen, each looking at the other, each panting,
she in her terror and he in his agony.
"Take me away," she said. "Out of the house. That room frightened me.
There's something there."
"Ay;" he assented. "There med bae soomthing. Sall we goa oop t'
fealds?"
* * * * *
The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and
gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow
track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the
mistal.
Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began.
It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver
green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.
The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long,
broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched
beside it.
Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There
was neither thought nor purpose in their going.
The quivering air was like a sheet of glass let down between plain and
hill.
Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over
the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the
rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.
Alice stopped in the track and turned.
"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."
Greatorex stood scanning the hill.
"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep."
"Oh, Jim, he'll see us."
"Nat he!"
But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.
"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us."
"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?"
"I don't want to be seen," she moaned.
"Wall--?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here
than, tall he's paassed."
A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long,
narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came
the sweet, heavy scent of hay.
"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here."
"He wawn't."
But Jim shut the door.
"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil
feet. Staay there--where yo are--tell I tall yo."
He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She
heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.
He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The
sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced
in it.
Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited
below.
"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally."
He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.
They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the attitude of
children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a
carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.
"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly
frightened."
She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his.
Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows
propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his
thick, mournful voice he spoke.
"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of
these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks."
"I can't marry you, darling. I can't."
"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo
think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I
couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could
bae roough wi' t' lil laambs."
He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above
his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on.
"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo."
That brought her to his side with her soft cry.
For a moment he lay rigid and still.
Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them
where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the
cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture.
* * * * *
Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to.