The Three Sisters Part 62

fealds?"

The Three Fields looked over the back of Upthorne Farm. Naked and gray, the great stone barn looked over the Three Fields. A narrow track led to it, through the gaps, slantwise, from the gate of the mistal.

Above the fields the barren, ruined hillside ended and the moor began.

It rolled away southward and westward, in dusk and purple and silver green, utterly untamed, uncaught by the network of the stone walls.

The barn stood high and alone on the slope of the last field, a long, broad-built nave without its tower. A single thorn-tree crouched beside it.

Alice Cartaret and Greatorex went slowly up the Three Fields. There was neither thought nor purpose in their going.

The quivering air was like a sheet of gla.s.s let down between plain and hill.

Slowly, with mournful cries, a flock of mountain sheep came down over the shoulder of the moor. Behind them a solitary figure topped the rise as Alice and Greatorex came up the field-track.

Alice stopped in the track and turned.

"Somebody's coming over the moor. He'll see us."

Greatorex stood scanning the hill.

"'Tis Nad, wi' t' dawg, drivin' t' sheep."

"Oh, Jim, he'll see us."

"Nat he!"

But he drew her behind the shelter of the barn.

"He'll come down the fields. He'll be sure to see us."

"Ef he doos, caann't I walk in my awn fealds wi' my awn sweetheart?"

"I don't want to be seen," she moaned.

"Wall--?" he pushed open the door of the barn. "Wae'll creep in here than, tall he's paa.s.sed."

A gray light slid through the half-shut door and through the long, narrow slits in the walls. From the open floor of the loft there came the sweet, heavy scent of hay.

"He'll see the door open. He'll come in. He'll find us here."

"He wawn't."

But Jim shut the door.

"We're saafe enoof. But 'tis naw plaace for yo. Yo'll mook yore lil feet. Staay there--where yo are--tell I tall yo."

He groped his way in the half darkness up the hay loft stair. She heard his foot going heavily on the floor over her head.

He drew back the bolt and pushed open the door in the high wall. The sunlight flooded the loft; it streamed down the stair. The dust danced in it.

Jim stood on the stair. He smiled down at Alice where she waited below.

"Coom oop into t' haay loft, Ally."

He stooped. He held out his hand and she climbed to him up the stair.

They sat there on the floor of the loft, silent, in the att.i.tude of children who crouch hiding in their play. He had strewn for her a carpet of the soft, sweet hay and piled it into cushions.

"Oh, Jim," she said at last. "I'm so frightened. I'm so horribly frightened."

She stretched out her arm and slid her hand into his.

Jim's hand pressed hers and let it go. He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands clutching his forehead. And in his thick, mournful voice he spoke.

"Yo wouldn't bae freetened ef yo married mae. There'd bae an and of these scares, an' wae sudn't 'ave t' roon these awful risks."

"I can't marry you, darling. I can't."

"Yo caann't, because yo're freetened o' mae. I coom back to thot. Yo think I'm joost a roough man thot caann't understand yo. But I do. I couldn't bae roough with yo, Ally, anny more than Nad, oop yon, could bae roough wi' t' lil laambs."

He was lying flat on his back now, with his arms stretched out above his head. He stared up at the rafters as he went on.

"Yo wouldn't bae freetened o' mae ef yo looved mae as I loove yo."

That brought her to his side with her soft cry.

For a moment he lay rigid and still.

Then he turned and put his arm round her. The light streamed on them where they lay. Through the open doorway of the loft they heard the cry of the sheep coming down into the pasture.

Greatorex got up and slid the door softly to.

XLVI

Morfe Fair was over and the farmers were going home.

A broken, straggling traffic was on the roads from dale to dale. There were men who went gaily in spring carts and in wagons. There were men on horseback and on foot who drove their sheep and their cattle before them.

A train of three were going slowly up Garthdale, with much lingering to gather together and rally the weary and bewildered flocks.

Into this train there burst, rocking at full gallop, a trap drawn by Greatorex's terrified and indignant mare. Daisy was not driven by Greatorex, for the reins were slack in his dropped hands, she was urged, whipped up, and maddened to her relentless speed. Her open nostrils drank the wind of her going.