He left it there at last and got to his feet, but even as he did so he remembered Sarah’s eyes. He wondered what the doctor had said and wished he knew, because, of course, there would be no question of staying if the report were bad. He was still standing, hesitating, and wondering what he should do, when the door of the Stewards’ Room opened above, and a man came out.
It was, as somehow might have been expected, the stranger of the car, otherwise Simon’s now celebrated “hearse.” Simon, however, had not looked at him then, and he barely glanced at him now. It was a blind day, as Sarah had said, and all through the Thornthwaites seemed determined to be as blind as the day. The agent followed him out, looking cheerful and amused. “I wish you luck all round!” Simon heard him say, as he shook the stranger’s hand, and thought morosely that it was easy and cheap to wish folks luck. “This should be the finest day of your life,” he added more gravely, looking over the rail, and the man going down looked up and said “That’s so!” in a fervent tone. The old farmer waiting in the bar felt a spasm of envy and bitterness at the quietly triumphant words. “The finest day of your life,”—that was for the man going down. “The heaviest day of your life,”—that was for the man going up. With a touch of dreary humour he thought to himself that it was really he who was going down, if it came to that. …
With a feeling of something like shame he kept himself out of sight until the stranger had disappeared, and then experienced a slight shock when Dent called to him in the same cheery tone. Almost without knowing it he had looked for the voice to change, and its geniality jarred on his dismal mood. Somehow it seemed to put him about at the start, and when Dent laid a hand on his shoulder, saying—“Well, Simon!” with a smile, it was all he could do not to give him a surly snarl by way of reply. They went into the old-fashioned room, which smelt of horsehair and wool mats, and Simon seated himself miserably on the extreme edge of a chair. Dent went to the window and lifted a finger to somebody in the street, and then seated himself at the table, and said “Well, Simon!” and smiled again. He was a strongly built man, with a pleasant face, which seemed rather more pleasant than need be to his visitor’s jaundiced eye.
He looked away from it, however, staring at the floor, and after the first conventional remarks began his tale of woe, that slow trickle of disaster which always gathered itself into terrible spate. “You’ll know what I’m here for, sir,” he concluded, at the end of his first breath, twisting his hat like a tea-tray in his restless hands. “Things has got that bad wi’ us I doubt we can’t go on, and so we’ve made up our minds we’d best clear out next year.”
Dent nodded kindly in answer, but with a rather abstracted air. He had listened patiently enough to the slow tale, but Simon had a feeling that his tragic recital was not receiving the sympathy it deserved. He began a fresh relation of the ills which had befallen him at the farm, intending a grand climax to be capped by Sarah’s eyes; but there were so many dead troubles to dig out of their graves as he went along, that the last and most vital dropped from the reckoning, after all.
“Ay, well, you’ve likely heard all this before,” he finished lamely in the middle of a speech, conscious that he had missed his point, though without being able to say how. “We’ve had a bad year this year an’ all, and I can’t see as it’s any use holding on. Me and my missis fixed it up as we come in, so if you’ll take my notice, sir, we’ll go next spring.”
“Your wife’s in town, is she?” Dent asked. For some reason he looked again at the window from which he had waved. “How does she take the thought of leaving the farm?”
“Well, sir, we’ll both feel it, after all these years, but I don’t know as it’s any use calling out. I put it to her as we’d better quit, and she agreed to it right off.”
“I wish you’d brought her along,” the agent said, still speaking in a detached tone. There were some notes on the table within reach of his hand, and he glanced thoughtfully at them as he spoke.
Simon stiffened a little, and looked surprised. “I’m speaking for both on us, sir, as I said before.”
“Of course, Simon,” Dent said, rousing himself. “I know that. But I’d have liked a word with her, all the same.” His glance went back to the notes, and he smiled as if at his own thoughts. … “And so you’ve really made up your minds that you’d better go?”
“Haven’t I been saying so, sir, all along?” Simon was really injured now, and his wounded dignity showed in his tone. Mr. Dent was taking the
