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Page 28
'Yes,' she answered, in a low, rapid voice.
'Ye'll consent t' hev me, ef I git ye oot o' yer trouble?'
'Yes,' she repeated, in the same tone.
She heard him draw a long breath.
'I said 't was a turn o' Providence, meetin' wi' ye oop here,' he
exclaimed, with half-suppressed exultation.
Her teeth began to chatter a little: she felt that he was peering at
her, curiously, through the darkness.
'An' noo,' he continued briskly, 'ye'd best be gettin' home. Give me
ye're hand, an' I'll stiddy ye ower t' stones.'
He helped her down the bank of shingle, exclaiming: 'By goom, ye're
stony cauld.' Once or twice she slipped: he supported her, roughly
gripping her knuckles. The stones rolled down the steps, noisily,
disappearing into the night.
Presently they struck the turf bridle-path, and, as they descended
silently towards the lights of the village, he said gravely:
'I always reckoned what my day 'ud coom.'
She made no reply; and he added grimly:
'There'll be terrible work wi' mother over this.'
He accompanied her down the narrow lane that led past her uncle's house.
When the lighted windows came in sight he halted.
'Good night, lassie,' he said kindly. 'Do ye give ower distressin'
yeself.'
'Good night, Mr. Garstin,' she answered, in the same low, rapid voice in
which she had given him her answer up on the fell.
'We're man an' wife plighted now, are we not?' he blurted timidly.
She held her face to his, and he kissed her on the cheek, clumsily.
VI
The next morning the frost had set in. The sky was still clear and
glittering: the whitened fields sparkled in the chilly sunlight: here
and there, on high, distant peaks, gleamed dainty caps of snow. All
the week Anthony was to be busy at the fell-foot, wall-building against
the coming of the winter storms: the work was heavy, for he was
single-handed, and the stone had to be fetched from off the fell-side.
Two or three times a day he led his rickety, lumbering cart along the
lane that passed the vicarage gate, pausing on each journey to glance
furtively up at the windows. But he saw no sign of Rosa Blencarn; and,
indeed, he felt no longing to see her: he was grimly exultant over the
remembrance of his wooing of her, and over the knowledge that she was
his. There glowed within him a stolid pride in himself: he thought of
the others who had courted her, and the means by which he had won her
seemed to him a fine stroke of cleverness.
And so he refrained from any mention of the matter; relishing, as he
worked, all alone, the days through, the consciousness of his secret
triumph, and anticipating, with inward chucklings, the discomforted
cackle of his mother's female friends. He foresaw without misgiving, her
bitter opposition: he felt himself strong; and his heart warmed towards
the girl. And when, at intervals, the brusque realization that, after
all, he was to possess her swept over him, he gripped the stones, and
swung them almost fiercely into their places.
All around him the white, empty fields seemed slumbering breathlessly.
The stillness stiffened the leafless trees. The frosty air flicked his
blood: singing vigorously to himself he worked with a stubborn,
unflagging resolution, methodically postponing, till the length of the
wall should be completed, the announcement of his betrothal.
After his reticent, solitary fashion, he was very happy, reviewing his
future prospects, with a plain and steady assurance, and, as the
week-end approached, coming to ignore the irregularity of the whole
business: almost to assume, in the exaltation of his pride, that he had
won her honestly; and to discard, stolidly, all thought of Luke Stock,
of his relations with her, of the coming child that was to pass for his
own.
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