"Yes?" he said, and to himself his voice sounded hoarse and queer.
"She was one in an 'underd, poor maid! I putts a flower 'ere every time
I passes. Pretty maid an' gude maid she was, though they wouldn't burry
'er up to th' church, nor where she wanted to be burried neither." The
old labourer paused, and put his hairy, twisted hand flat down on the
turf beside the bluebells.
"Yes?" said Ashurst.
"In a manner of speakin'," the old man went on, "I think as 'twas a
love-story--though there's no one never knu for zartin. Yu can't tell
what's in a maid's 'ead but that's wot I think about it." He drew his
hand along the turf. "I was fond o' that maid--don' know as there was
anyone as wasn' fond of 'er. But she was to lovin'-'earted--that's where
'twas, I think." He looked up. And Ashurst, whose lips were trembling in
the cover of his beard, murmured again: "Yes?"
"'Twas in the spring, 'bout now as 't might be, or a little
later--blossom time--an' we 'ad one o' they young college gentlemen
stayin' at the farm-nice feller tu, with 'is 'ead in the air. I liked
'e very well, an' I never see nothin' between 'em, but to my thinkin'
'e turned the maid's fancy.
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