rushed back upon her, shaking her nerves and chilling her heart. She began to wonder what it would be like to be really blind, and in a sudden panic she made a strained attempt to discern the pictures and almanacs in the room, tracing the patterns of the antimacassars with a shaking finger, and the shapes of the chair-backs and table-legs. When she was really blind, Simon would have to do for her instead of her doing for him, but he would only make a poorish job of it, she felt sure. There would still be plenty for both of them to do, in spite of the fact that “things had come to an end.” There were the long winter months to be got through before they left, as well as the work and worry of changing house. May would help her, no doubt; she could always count on May; but she knew that she did not want to owe her more than she could help. It was partly a new uprising of dead jealousy, of course, as well as pride refusing dependence upon one who did not belong. But at the back of all there was a more just and generous motive than either of these—the consciousness that May had given too much already, and should not be called upon for more. Months ahead though it lay, she began presently to think a woman’s thoughts about the breaking-up of the home. Little as they possessed of any value in itself, there would be many things, she knew, that they would want to keep. There were certain things, expensive to renew, which still had a flicker of useful life, and others, useless to others as well as themselves, which were yet bone of their bone and flesh of their ancient flesh. She began to make a list in her head, and to value the furniture as well as she knew how. She had been to many a sale in her time, and had a sufficiently good memory of what the things had fetched, as well as of whose house had eventually raked them in. She saw Sandholes full of peering and poking folk, a chattering crowd stretching into the garden and yard, and forming a black procession along the roads of the marsh. She saw traps and heavy carts and laden human beings slowly departing with the stuff of her human life, while the shreds that were left to her, piled and roped on a waiting lorry, looked poorer than ever in the light of day. She saw the garden gravel printed by many boots, and the yard trenched and crossed by wheels. She saw the windows open in a house from which nobody looked, and scrubbed, bare floors which seemed to have forsworn the touch of feet. She saw the lorry pass reluctantly away into the great, homeless place that was the world. And last of all she saw herself and Simon shutting the door that finally shut them out. There was all the difference in ten thousand worlds between the sound of a door that was shutting you in and the sound of the same door shutting you out. …
She had always been a still woman, when she had had time to be still, but she found it impossible to be still today. She began to walk up and down, listening for Simon’s voice, and in the strange room she hurt herself against the furniture, and received little shocks from the cold surface of strange objects and the violent closing-up of the walls. She gave it up after a while, forcing herself to a stand, and it was so that Simon found her when he opened the door at last.
She had a further wait, however, when he found that the trap had managed to oust the car from the coveted place. At first he was rather afraid that the hearse-story had earned him too many drinks, but even to marketing eyes the fact was plain. He chuckled as he walked from one to the other, saying “Gox!” and “Did ye ever now?” and “Losh save us!” and “Wha’d ha’ thowt it!” The driver was not to be seen, or the wait might have been longer still, but as it was they were mounted presently on the emaciated seats, and Simon jerked up the horse in a last spasm of victorious glee.
For some miles he talked of nothing but the sensation that he had caused in Witham, and how he had found the hearse-story everywhere in the town.
“I’d nobbut to turn a corner,” he announced proudly, though pretending disgust, “but sure an’ certain there’d be somebody waiting to tax me on t’far side! There was Burton, and Wilson, and Danny Allen and a deal more, all on ’em ready wi’—‘Well, Simon, and what about yon hearse?’ I could see ’em oppenin’ their mouths half a street off!” he chuckled loudly. “Folk clipped me by t’arm and begged me tell ’em how it was, and t’others rushed out o’ shops and fair fell on me as I ganged by!”
“They mun ha’ been terble hard set for summat to do,” Sarah answered unkindly. “What did you make out wi’ Mr. Dent?”
At once the shadow fell again on the fine sun of Simon’s success.
“Nay, you may well ax,” he growled, “but I’m danged if I rightly know! He was that queer there was no doing owt wi’ him at all. Seemed to be thinking o’ summat else most o’ the time—gaping out at winder and smiling at nowt. He was a deal queerer nor me, hearse or no hearse, and so I tell ye!”
“But you give notice in, didn’t you? You likely got that fixed?”
“Well, I did and I didn’t, after a manner o’ speaking. I kept handing it in like, and he kept handing it back. He said we’d best take a bit more time to think.”
“We’ve had time and plenty, I’m sure!” Sarah sighed—“ay, that we have! … I reckon you tellt
