' fifty parishes? Na, not I,' and, with a short, grim laugh,
he brought his fist down heavily on the oak table.

'Ye're daft, Tony,' the old woman blurted.

'Daft or na daft, I tell ye this, mother, that I be forty-six year o'
age this back-end, and there be some things I will na listen to. Rosa
Blencarn's bonny enough for me.'

'Ay, bonny enough--I've na patience wi' ye. Bonny enough--tricked oot
in her furbelows, gallivantin' wi' every royster fra Pe'rith. Bonny
enough--that be all ye think on. She's bin a proper parson's niece--the
giddy, feckless creature, an she'd mak' ye a proper sort o' wife, Tony
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.

She played vigorously. Once or twice the tune stumbled, and she
recovered it impatiently, bending over the key-board, showily
flourishing her wrists as she touched the stops. She was bare-headed
(her hat and cloak lay beside her on a stool). She had fair, fluffy
hair, cut short behind her neck; large, round eyes, heightened by a
fringe of dark lashes; rough, ruddy cheeks, and a rosy, full-lipped,
unstable mouth. She was dressed quite simply, in a black, close-fitting
bodice, a little frayed at the sleeves. Her hands and neck were coarsely
fashioned: her comeliness was brawny, literal, unfinished, as it were.

When at last the ponderous chords of the Amen faded slowly into the
twilight, flushed, breathing a little quickly, she paused, listening to
t