He hurried back to Thyrza, and they shut up the shop, and went out to the field by the willow pond. A green, still dusk lay over the fields and sky; no stars were out yet, but the chalky moon hung low over the woods of Burntkitchen. The distant guns were silent, only the bleating of lambs came from the Trulilows, and every now and then a burst of liquid, trilling, sucking melody from a blackbird among the willows.

“Hark to the bird,” said Thyrza.

“Maybe he’s got a nest full of liddle ’uns.”

[151]

“And a liddle wife as can’t sing—funny how hen-birds never sing, Tom.”

“Thyrza, I wish as I cud maake a home fur you, dear.”

“Wotever maakes you think of that? The birds’ nest? Reckon I’ve got a dentical liddle home.”

“But it’s wot you’ve always lived in. I never built it for you.”

“Doan’t you go fretting over that. I’d be lonesome wudout the shop, Tom—I doan’t think as I’ll ever want to be wudout the shop. And we’ve bin so happy there together. It’s saum as if you’d built it fur me, since you’ve maade it wot it never was before.”

He drew her close to him, sleek, soft, heavy, like a little cat, and leaned his cheek against her hair.

“Reckon I’ll always think of you in it.... I’ll see you setting up in the mornun wud your eyes all blinky and your hair streaming down—and I’ll see you putting on the kettle and dusting the shop, and maybe having a bit of talk over the counter wud a luckier chap than me. And all the day through I’ll see you, and in the swale you’ll be putting your head out for a blow of air, and there’ll be the lam............