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For the last hour or two Marian had felt uneasy about Tess, whom she could not get near enough to speak to, the other women having kept up their strength by drinking ale, and Tess having done without it through traditionary dread, owing to its results at her home in childhood.
"Who was the man, Tess?" "Are you really, really going away for two whole days?" "I am, sweet." "Harvey dear, I'll tell you all about it. You won't be angry?" "All depends. Who was the man?" His laughing eyes belied his assumed sternness of visage, for in her eyes there shone a light so serenely pure that he knew he had naught to dread. "A very, very nice man, sir. Now try and guess who it was?"
I would like to take some home with me." "I ain't got no fish nor berries," said Tess, rising with a burning blush. "Then what have you in your basket?" asked the lawyer, getting up also. "Child, you need not feel badly over the money I give you for the food you sell." He was standing beside her when his eyes fell upon the waiting janitor.
"I think I have finished her, however, though she made my fingers ache." Tess could then see him at full length. He wore the ordinary white pinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer when milking, and his boots were clogged with the mulch of the yard; but this was all his local livery. Beneath it was something educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing.
Until then the Elder had not seemed to be aware of the girl's presence, but at the introduction he extended his hand, formally polite. When, in shy greeting, Tess lifted her eyes, one corner of his mouth drew down rigidly. She was more at ease when Deforrest Young joined them. Her welcoming smile caused that gentleman's heart to bound in delight.
"Sit down on the bed," interrupted the tired voice. "Myry and Ezy air both gone. Satisfied says as how Myry air a-smilin' and as how ye said she were happy. Satisfied and me feels better, we does." Tessibel choked back the welling tears. The gray head resting upon a soiled pillow, the pale face turned toward the wall, which had not turned to her, struck Tess deeper than Satisfied's stolid grief.
During the rest of the journey a silence fell upon them. Kennedy's brindle bull, scenting a friend, capered madly for a word from Tess, but the squatter paid no heed to her dog chum. She took her hand from Frederick's to unfasten the door and light the candle. While they were walking the tracks, the woman in her had tried to remember in what condition she had left the hut.
A voice from the back of the church broke in abruptly upon her hesitation. "I baptize thee, child," it rang, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Bill Hopkins was in the middle aisle, coming toward her. Tess snatched one glimpse of his face, still holding her wet hand upon the dark-haired babe. "Say it, girl," Hopkins commanded. "Say it, quick. The child is dying."
"Yep, Tess; take one from Myry's box. They ain't good, but our little brat wored them." Aimlessly, she lay down again and ceased speaking, but whimpered until Tess left the room. The girl made her choice from the small stock of dresses that had been worn by the Longman family, and had at last descended to the little dead boy. On her way home to the hut once more, Tess paused on the rocks.
Women like ye don't die, and Mother Moll will come to the hut to-day." "Mother Moll!" echoed Teola. "Mother Moll! Oh, you mean the witch? And will she oh, will she help me so they will never know?" "Yep. And now shut up. Ye air a woman, and was borned for things like this. If ye walks a spell, then I lugs ye across the gully." "And my father and mother " "Shut up, I says," ordered Tess.
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