"Why, Adam, lad, is't you? Have ye been all this time away and not
brought the lasses back, after all? Where are they?"
"No, I've not brought 'em," said Adam, turning round, to indicate that
he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.
"Why," said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, "ye look
bad. Is there anything happened?"
"Yes," said Adam, heavily. "A sad thing's happened. I didna find Hetty
at Snowfield."
Mr. Poyser's good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment.
"Not find her? What's happened to her?" he said, his thoughts flying at
once to bodily accident.
"That I can't tell, whether anything's happened to her. She never went
to Snowfield--she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can't learn nothing
of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach."
"Why, you donna mean she's run away?" said Martin, standing still, so
puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a
trouble by him.
"She must ha' done," said Adam. "She didn't like our marriage when it
came to the point--that must be it. She'd mistook her feelings."
Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and rooting
up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing. His usual
slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was painful.
Pages:
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659