"Will they never find peace, those white-breasted ghosts up yonder?" she whispered. "Is there no God to take pity on them? Sexton, is there no God in Heaven?"
"I've heard tell on Him," said Witherlee slowly, "but I niver hed speech nor sign fro' Him. Th' slim ghosts I knaw, an' th' solid look o' grave-planking I knaw--but I'm dim, Mistress, dim, when ye axe me of owt else. Nay, I've heard th' teewits fret iver sin' I war out o' th' cradle, an' they're fretting still; an' when there comes a fresh Sexton to Marshcotes--I'll be th' first to mak him sweat at grave-digging, likely--why, there'll be teewits wheeling still aboon his head."
Her eyes were lifted piteously to his. "'Tis that keeps them sleeping--to die before wedlock, and never to feel a bairn's mouth soft against their own. I shall be one of them soon, Sexton--very soon; it was to have been my wedding-day--" she passed a hand across her forehead, striving to pick up the thread that seemed for ever slipping from her grasp.
"Happen--happen there's a God hid somewhere," said Witherlee, in the tone of one who tells a fairy-story to a child. "I reckon, if there be, He'll look thy way, Mistress, afore so long. Tak heart, an'--"
The clue was coming nearer to her. "Nay, there's no God up there, Sexton," she broke in. "I left Him--years ago, surely--down in the sweet valley-lands. There were woods, and streams, and kine knee-deep among the swaying grasses; and the winds were warm, Sexton, and God was very kind. I was happy then, I think--but some one came and took me away--nay, it has gone again!" She paused and looked wistfully across the hills.
"I've heard o' th' Low Country," murmured Witherlee. "They say there's more warmth an' ease dahn there, but th' fowk is nobbut frail-like wi' it all, I fancy. Ay, an' I war telled, by one 'at hed been i' them furrin parts an' come back to Marshcotes, that th' meadow-grass there, for all it grows so thick, is rank an' noan so sweet as our hard-won crops up here. Well, well, there's some mun live lower nor Marshcotes, just as there's some mun carry weakly bodies their lives through."
Mistress Wayne did not hear him. Her eyes were still on the field climbing far-off to the sky, with their black walls and the white lines of snow that lay on the windward side of them. "It was like that, Sexton, when first I came here," she went on presently, pointing with her finger. "Naught but black walls, and white drifts of snow, and drear houses that seemed to scowl at you each time you crossed the threshold. And the people were all so rough and hard, and fierce--they frightened me--Sexton, shall I never again get down to the meadows and the nightingales and the sweetbriar hedges under which the violets grow?"