“Time enough—­time enough,” he said.  “You doan’t want no wife to Newtake these years to come, while I do want a darter to home.”

So Phoebe, albeit the course of operations was fully planned, forbore to tell her father anything, and suffered the day to drift nearer and nearer without expressly indicating the event it was to witness.

CHAPTER XI

TOGETHER

Though not free from various temporal problems that daily demanded solution, Will very readily allowed his mind a holiday from all affairs of business during the fortnight that preceded his wife’s arrival at Newtake.  What whitewash could do was done; a carpet, long since purchased but not laid down till now, adorned the miniature parlour; while out of doors, becoming suddenly conscious that not a blossom would greet Phoebe’s eyes, Will set about the manufacture of a flower-bed under the kitchen window, bound the plat with neat red tiles, and planted therein half a dozen larkspurs—­Phoebe’s favourite flower—­with other happy beauties of early summer.  The effort looked raw and unhappy, however, and as ill luck would have it, these various plants did not take kindly to their changed life, and greeted Phoebe with hanging heads.

But the great morning came at last, and Will, rising, with the curious thought that he would never sleep in the middle of his bed again, donned his best dark-brown velveteens and a new pair of leathern gaiters, then walked out into the air, where Chown was milking the cows.  The day dawned as brightly as the events it heralded, and Will, knowing that his mother and Chris would be early at Newtake, strolled out to meet them.  Over against the farm rose moorland crowned by stone, and from off their granite couches grey mists blushing to red now rose with lazy deliberation and vanished under the sun’s kiss.  A vast, sweet, diamond-twinkling freshness filled the Moor; blue shadows lay in the dewy coombs, and sun-fires gleamed along the heather ridges.  No heath-bell as yet had budded, but the flame of the whins splashed many undulations, and the tender foliage of the whortleberry, where it grew on exposed granite, was nearly scarlet and flashed jewel-bright in the rich texture of the waste.  Will saw his cattle pass to their haunts, sniffed the savour of them on the wind, and enjoyed the thought of being their possessor; then his eyes turned to the valley and the road which wound upwards from it under great light.  A speck at length appeared three parts of a mile distant and away started Blauchard, springing down the hillside to intercept it.  His heart sang within him; here was a glorious day that could never come again, and he meant to live it gloriously.

“Marnin’, mother!  Marnin’, Chris!  Let me get in between ’e.  Breakfast will be most ready by time we’m home.  I knawed you d keep your word such a rare fashion day!”

Will soon sat between the two women, while Mrs. Blanchard’s pony regulated its own pace and three tongues chattered behind it.  A dozen brown paper parcels occupied the body of the little cart, for Damaris had insisted that the wedding feast should be of her providing.  It was proposed that Chris and her mother should spend the day at Newtake and depart after drinking tea; while Phoebe was to arrive in a fly at one o’clock.