‘I reckon ye’ve come fast.  T’ ould horse is over hot,’ he remarked bluntly, as he went to the animal’s head.

She clambered down hastily, and, coming to his side, began breathlessly: 

‘Ye ought t’ hev coom t’ market, Tony.  There’s bin pretty goin’s on in Pe’rith today.  I was helpin’ Anna Forsyth t’ choose six yards o’ sheetin’ in Dockroy, when we sees Rosa Blencarn coom oot o’ t’ ’Bell and Bullock’ in company we’ Curbison and young Joe Smethwick.  Smethwick was fair reelin’ drunk, and Curbison and t’ girl were a-houldin’ on to him, to keep him fra fallin’; and then, after a bit, he puts his arm round the girl t’ stiddy hisself, and that fashion they goes off, right oop t’ public street—­’

He continued to unload the packages, and to carry them mechanically one by one into the house.  Each time, when he reappeared, she was standing by the steaming horse, busy with her tale.

‘An’ on t’ road hame we passed t’ three on’ em in Curbison’s trap, with Smethwick leein’ in t’ bottom, singin’ maudlin’ songs.  They were passin’ Dunscale village, an’t’ folks coom runnin’ oot o’ houses t’ see ’em go past—­’

He led the cart away towards the stable, leaving her to cry the remainder after him across the yard.

Half-an-hour later he came in for his dinner.  During the meal not a word passed between them, and directly he had finished he strode out of the house.  About nine o’clock he returned, lit his pipe, and sat down to smoke it over the kitchen fire.

‘Where’ve ye bin, Tony?’ she asked.

‘Oop t’ vicarage, courtin’, he retorted defiantly, with his pipe in his mouth.

This was ten months ago; ever since he had been doggedly waiting.  That evening he had set his mind on the girl, he intended to have her; and while his mother gibed, as she did now upon every opportunity, his patience remained grimly unflagging.  She would remind him that the farm belonged to her, that he would have to wait till her death before he could bring the hussy to Hootsey:  he would retort that as soon as the girl would have him, he intended taking a small holding over at Scarsdale.  Then she would give way, and for a while piteously upbraid him with her old age, and with the memory of all the years she and he had spent together, and he would comfort her with a display of brusque, evasive remorse.

But, none the less, on the morrow, his thoughts would return to dwell on the haunting vision of the girl’s face, while his own rude, credulous chivalry, kindled by the recollection of her beauty, stifled his misgivings concerning her conduct.

Meanwhile she dallied with him, and amused herself with the younger men.  Her old uncle fell ill in the spring, and could scarcely leave the house.  She declared that she found life in the valley intolerably dull, that she hated the quiet of the place, that she longed for Leeds, and the exciting bustle of the streets; and in the evenings she wrote long letters to the girl-friends she had left behind there, describing with petulant vivacity her tribe of rustic admirers.  At the harvest-time she went back on a fortnight’s visit to friends; the evening before her departure she promised Anthony to give him her answer on her return.  But, instead, she avoided him, pretended to have promised in jest, and took up with Luke Stock, a cattle-dealer from Wigton.