Garstin, ye great, fond booby.'

She pushed back her chair, and, hurriedly clattering the crockery, began
to clear away the supper.

'T' hoose be mine, t' Lord be praised,' she continued in a loud, hard
voice, 'an' as long as he spare me, Tony, I'll na see Rosa Blencarn set
foot inside it.'

Anthony scowled, without replying, and drew his chair to the hearth. His
mother bustled about the room behind him. After a while she asked:

'Did ye pen t' lambs in t' back field?'

'Na, they're in Hullam bottom,' he answered curtly.

The door closed behind her, and by and by he could hear her moving
overhead. Meditatively blinking, he filled his pipe clumsily, and
pulling a crumpled newspaper from his pocket, sat on over the
smouldering fire, reading and stolidly puffing.


II

The music rolled through the dark, empty church. The last, leaden
flicker of daylight glimmered in through the pointed windows, and beyond
the level rows of dusky pews, tenanted only by a litter of prayer-books,
two guttering candles revealed the organ pipes, and the young girl's
swaying figure.