Chapter II

"I've told the old man," Mrs. Peverell informed Mary the next morning. "Not all of it, I haven't. Men don't understand what beant just so. He can't abide what's dropped in the farmyard comin' up. ''Tis wheat,' I tell 'en. ''Tain't crops,' says he. ''Twill make a bag of seed,' I says. 'The ground weren't prepared for it,' says he. That's men. Mebbe they're right. 'Nature may have her plan,' I tell 'en, 'but God have his accidents.' 'I can't grow nawthing by accident,' says he. 'You can't,' says I, 'but afore you came, that's the very way they did grow and I guess there's as much rule about accidents as there is of following peas with wheat.' He looks at me then and he says no more, which is good as sayin'--'You women be daft things,' for he picks up his hat and goes out and the understandin' doant come back into his eyes afore he feels the tilled earth under his feet."

So Mr. Peverell knew that in certain time Mary was going to have a baby. He looked at her shyly when next they met. It was in the orchard sloping down the hill that drops to the towpath of the canal. He was calculating the yield of apples, just showing their green and red, and she had come to tell him that the midday meal was ready.

"Thank you, ma'am," said he, when he had always called her "Miss" before. This was the hedge, the boundary of that tilled and cultivated field his mind had placed her in. Beyond that limit, as Mrs. Peverell had said, he would not understand. With a childish simplicity he had accepted all that his wife had told him. She had appeased his need for understanding. Perfectly satisfied, he asked for no more.

"Are you going to give me work to do?" she asked as they walked back together to the house. "Real work, I mean. I can work and I'm so interested."

"Work won't be easy for the likes of you," said he.

"No, but there are things I could do. Things that aren't quite so laborious as others. I could milk the cows, couldn't I? If once I got the trick of it, it would be easy enough, wouldn't it?"

"Women beant bad milkers," he agreed with encouragement. "There's no harm in 'ee tryin'."

"When could I begin?"

"'Ee could try a hand this evenin' when our lad brings the cows in. They be fair easy--them's we've got now. Easy quarters they all of them have and they stand quiet enough wi' a bit of coaxin'. I dessay 'ee could coax 'em well enough. 'Ee've a softy voice to listen to when 'ee's wantin' a thing and means to get it."

She laughed.

"I didn't know I had," she said.

"No? Women doant know nawthin', seems to me. 'Mazin' 'tis to me how well they manages along."

She went into the cow sheds that evening and had her first lesson. It was tiring and trying and unsuccessful and her back ached. But in the last few minutes, just when she was giving up all hope of ever being able to do it and the strain of trying had relaxed in her fingers, a stream of milk shot forth from the quarter she held in response to the simplest pressure of her hand.

"That's it! That's it!" exclaimed the boy.

"Doant 'ee get into the way of strippin' 'em with 'ee's fingers, not till they've got to be stripped and 'twon't come t'other way."

She rose the next morning early when through her window she heard the cows coming into the yard and slipping on her clothes without thought of how she looked, she went down to the shed and tried again.

In three days' time she had mastered it and gave an exhibition of her skill to Mr. Peverell who stood by with smiles suffusing his face.

"That'll do," said he. "The lad couldn't do no better'n that."

"Well, can't I look after the cows altogether?" she begged. "Drive them in and out and feed and milk them? Then you can have the boy for other work."

"It's a samesome job," he warned her. "There's clockwork inside them cows' udders and 'tain't always convenient to a lady like yourself to go by it."

"Can't you believe me," she exclaimed, "when I tell you I don't consider myself a lady, any more than Mrs. Peverell wastes her time in doing? I'm just a woman like she is and I want to work, not spasmodically, not just here and there, but all the time. Do you remember what you said about helping?"

"I've no recollection," he replied.

"Well, you said it wasn't help was wanted in a hay-field, 'twas work. I want to make something of myself while I'm here. I don't just want to think I'm making something. Can't you trust me to do it?"

Mr. Peverell looked with a smile at his wife who had come out to witness the exhibition.

"What do you think, mother?" said he.

"I think women knows a lot more'n what you understand, Mr. Peverell. You can understand all what you can handle and if you could handle her mind, you'd know well enough she could do it."

"So be," said he obediently and he turned to the boy. "You can take cartin' that grass out 'long them hedges this afternoon," he said. "There woant be no cows for 'ee to spend 'ee time milkin'. We've got a milkmaid come to Yarningdale. They'll think I be doin' mighty well with my crops come I tell 'em next market I've got a milkmaid well as a boy."