The Delectable Duchy | Page 5

shoes and stockings,

and paddled about for a minute in the dewy grass that fringed the
meadow's lower slope. Then, drawing a saucer from her reticule, she
wrung some dew into it and bathed her face. Ten minutes later she
re-appeared on the river's bank.
"A happy May, John!"
"A happy May to you, Sarah!"
John stepped out beside her, and making his boat fast, followed her up
the narrow path and around the shoulder of the steep meadow. They
overed a stile, then a second, and were among pink slopes of orchards
in bloom. Ahead of them a church tower rose out of soft billows of
apple-blossom, and above the tower a lark was singing. A child came
along the footpath from the village with two garlands mounted
cross-wise on a pole and looped together with strings of painted birds'
eggs. John gave him a penny for his show.
"Here's luck to your lass!" said the wise child.
Sarah was pleased, and added a second penny from her reticule. The
boy spat on it for luck, slipped it into his breeches pocket, and went on
his way skipping.
They stood still and looked after him for some moments, out of pure
pleasure in his good humour; then descended among the orchards to the
village. Half-way up the street stood the inn, the Flowing Source, with
whitewashed front and fuchsia-trees that reached to the first-floor
windows; and before it a well enclosed with a round stone wall, over
which the toadflax spread in a tangle. Around the well, in the sunshine,
were set a dozen or more small tables, covered with white cloths, and
two score at least of young people eating bread and cream and laughing.
The landlady, a broad woman in a blue print gown, and large apron,
came forward.
"Why, Miss Sarah, I'd nigh 'pon given you up. Your table's been spread
this hour, an' at last I was forced to ask some o' the young folks if you
was dead or no."

"Why should I be dead more than another?"
"Well, well--in the midst o' life, we're told. 'Tisn' only the ripe apples
that the wind scatters. He that comes by your side to-day is but
twin-brother to him that came wi' you the first time I mind 'ee, seemin'
but yesterday. Eh, Miss Sarah, but I envied 'ee then, sittin' wi' hand in
hand, an' but one bite taken out o' your bread an' cream; but I was just
husband-high myself i' those days, an' couldn't make the men believe
it."
"Mary Ann Jacobs," Miss Sarah broke out, "if 'twas not for the quality
of your cream, I'd go a-mayin' elsewhere, for I can truly say I hate your
way of talkin' from the bottom of my soul."
"Sarah," said John, wiping his mouth as he finished his bread and
cream, "I'm a glum man, as you well know; an' why Providence
drowned poor Jim, when it might have taken his twin image that hadn'
half his mouth--speech, is past findin' out. But 'tis generally allowed
that the grip o' my hand is uncommon like what Jim's used to be; an'
when I gets home to-night, the first thing my old woman'll be sure to
ask is 'Did 'ee give Sarah poor Jim's hand-clasp?'--an' what to say I
shan't know, unless you honours me so far."
"'Tis uncommon good of Maria," said the woman simply, and stole her
thin hand into his horny palm. She had done so, in answer to the same
speech, more than twenty times.
"Not at all," said John.
His fingers closed over hers, and rested so. All but a few of the mayers
had risen from the table, and were romping and chasing each other back
to the boats, for the majority were shop-girls and apprentices, and must
be back in time for business. But Miss Sarah was in no hurry.
"Not yet," she entreated, as John's grasp began to relax. He tightened it
again and waited, while she leant back, breathing short, with
half-closed eyes.

At length she said he might release her.
"I'm sure 'tis uncommon kind of Maria," she repeated.
"I don't see where the kindness comes in. Maria can have as good any
day o' the year, an' don't appear to value it to that extent."
They walked back through the orchards in silence. At Miss Sarah's
quay-door they parted, and John hoisted sail for his home around the
corner of the coast.

DAPHNIS.
Has olim exuvias mihi perfidus ille reliquit, Pignora cara sui: quae
nunc ego limine in ipso, Terra, tibi mando; debent haec pignora
Daphnin-- Ducite ab urbe domum, mea, carmina, ducite Daphnin.
I knew the superstition lingered along the country-side: and I was
sworn to find it. But the labourers and their wives smoothed all