But again she blocked the entrance as she had blocked it for May. It was the way into herself as well as into the house that these people sought, and she yielded to neither of them by an inch. “You can get out, if you’re Jim,” she said caustically, “and as smart as you like! Blindbeck’s your spot. We want nowt wi’ you here.”
The sharp words did not depress him, however. They were too reminiscent of old time.
“That’s a real mean Howdy!” he answered her humorously, advancing a foot. “ ’Tisn’t like Westmorland folk to keep folk tugging at the latch. … Shucks for Blindbeck!” he added laughingly, as she began the word again. “Sandholes is my little old home—always was, and always will be.” He advanced further, a merry, teasing note in his big voice. “You can’t keep me out, old woman! You never could. I’m coming right in, old woman! … I’m sure coming. … I’m right in!”
It was true, too. He was in the passage now, making his way by a force of desire stronger than May’s entreating love. Something else helped him as well, perhaps—some old extorted freedom of house and board. He put out his hand to Sarah as he turned to the light, but she shrank away from him against the wall.
“I won’t have you in t’house!” she cried angrily to his dim form. “Be off with you now, and look sharp about it!”
But again he seemed to be pleasantly cheered by her wrath, as if with a happy echo from the past.
“I’ll shin off right quick when I’ve had a word,” he coaxed. “Come on in, old woman, and look at me where there’s a bit more sun!” The flickering light seemed to beckon him on, for he began to move towards its dim dwelling. “I’ve news of Geordie for you,” he called back to her, as she did not stir. “You’ll sure be wanting to hear that!”
She heard him pass into the kitchen, his firm, confident tread raising a ring from every flag, and wondered, as with the knocking, why it did not carry all over the marsh. But still she stayed behind, fighting with herself and with the longing to hear his news. It could be of nothing but failure, she reminded herself, and her heart answered that that would be better than nothing at all. She heard him walking about the kitchen, as if he walked from this memory to that, peering into old cupboards and laying a hand upon old chairs. Presently, however, there came a silence as if he had seen enough, and, in a sudden panic lest he should be gone, she hurried after him into the room.
At once, as she went in, she traced the shape of him on the hearth, though she could not see his huge shadow that climbed the ceiling and swamped the wall. Clearly, too, she could feel his dominant personality all about, too heady a wine for the frail, cob webbed bottle of the place. Paused on the hearth, he was still looking around him with a wistful, humorous smile. He was thinking, as all think who return, how strong and yet how slender was the chain, how futile and yet how tenacious were the humble things which had held him through the years! He was thinking, too, how amazingly tiny everything had grown—the house, the kitchen, and the old woman within the door. Even the stretch of sand, which he could vaguely see, seemed narrow to him who had known much greater wastes.
He turned his smiling eyes suddenly to Sarah’s face.
“How’s the old man, by the way? Still keeping uppermost of the weeds?”
“He’s nobbut middlin’, that’s all,” she forced herself to reply.
“Is he anywhere about?”
“Like enough … but you needn’t wait.”
“I’d like a chin with him, all the same!” He hugged himself as he stood on the hearth, and his huge shadow hugged itself on the wall. The same mischievous sound crept back into his voice. “I’m mighty glad to see you again, old woman, I am that! Perhaps you’ll feel like slinging me a smile or two after a bit.”
“Eliza’ll smile, I’ll warrant, if you’ve nobbut a pound or two in your poke.”
“I have that—sure!” He slapped his coat as he spoke, laughing a great laugh which shook her as cruelly as his knock. “It’s up to me to keep my pockets stitched, nowadays,” he finished, in a contented tone.
“I’m main glad to hear it,” she said sardonically, and he nodded gaily.
“That’s real nice of you, old woman! You can keep right on. You’d a terrible down on me in the old days, hadn’t you now?”
“I’ve no use for you, Jim Thornthwaite, and never had. You know that as well as me.”
“That’s so!” He laughed again. “But I was always mighty fond of you.” He made a movement as if to cross to her side, but she backed instantly, as if she guessed. “Of course, you’d a deal rather it had been Geordie,” he said. “I know that. But he was never much of a sparkle in the family tarara, and that’s honest. I left him serving in a store—poor lad Geordie—and hankering like honey after the old spot!”
“And you left him behind,” Sarah flung at him—“you wi’ brass?”
“He wouldn’t take a red cent. I looked him up as soon as I struck it rich, but he was always set on hoeing his own row. He’d have taken it from his own folks, but he wouldn’t from me. Guess it was Blindbeck hate in him coming out at last! But if ever he’d had the dollars, he’d have been home before you could hear him shout.”
“He’s best where he is,” Sarah said coldly, repenting her charge. Eliza’s son should not see that she grudged or cared. “Them as makes beds can likely lie
