"I d?an't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boarzell if it's going cheapbut it ?un't worth m?aking all ourselves uncomfortable for it."For the rest of the meal they discussed the absent onesRose, Robert, Albert, Benjamin, Tilly, the boys hearing a great deal that had never come to their ears before. Caro ordered two more bottles of six, and in the end the party became quite convivial, and David and William, forgetting the strangeness of it all, were sorry when their sister at last stood up and announced that she must wobble off or she'd be late.
Immediately behind the cart walked Reuben with his mother on his arm. Her face was hidden in a clumsy black veil, which the Rye mantua-maker had assured her was the London fashion, and she was obviously ill at ease in the huge black shawl and voluminous skirts which the same fashion, according to the Rye mantua-maker, had decreed. Her hand pulled at Reuben's sleeve and stroked it as if for comfort. It was a smallish hand, and wonderfully soft for a farmer's wifebut then Mary Backfield had not lived like an ordinary farmer's wife. Under the thick veil, her face still had a certain soft colour and youthfulness, though she was nearly forty, and most women of her position were wrinkled and had lost their teeth by thirty-five. Also the curves of her figure were still delicate. She had been cherished by her husband, had done only light household work for him and borne him only two children. She carried the tokens of her happiness in smooth surfaces and soft lines."Reuben."A crash of thunder and a spit of lightning tore open the sky, and for a moment Reuben saw the slope of the Moor livid in the flash, and the crest of firs standing[Pg 225] against the split and tumbling clouds. The air rang, screamed, hissed, rushed, and rumbled. Reuben, hardly knowing what he did, had sprung to his feet.He did not have to wait long. A few days later he was told that somebody wanted to see him, and in the parlour found his daughter Tilly.
FORE:"Off!where?"