She sewed as she
read. For the Vicar considered that sewing was an occupation and that
reading was not. He was silent as long as his daughter sewed and
when she read he talked. Toward ten his silence would be broken by a
continual sighing and yearning. The Vicar longed for prayer time to
come and end his day. But he had decreed that prayer time was ten
o'clock and he would not have permitted it to come a minute sooner.
He nursed a book on his knees, but he made no pretence of reading
it. He had taken off his glasses and sat with his hands folded, in an
attitude of utter resignation to his own will.
In the kitchen Essy Gale sat by the dying fire and waited for the
stroke of ten. And as she waited she stitched at the torn breeches of
her little son.
Essy had come back to the house where she had been turned away. For
her mother was wanted by Mrs. Greatorex at Upthorne and what Mrs.
Greatorex wanted she got. There were two more children now at the Farm
and work enough for three women in the house. And Essy, with all her
pride, had not been too proud to come back. She had no feeling but
pity for the old man, her master, who had bullied her and put her to
shame. If it pleased God to afflict him that was God's affair, and,
even as a devout Wesleyan, Essy considered that God had about done
enough.
As Essy sat and stitched, she smiled, thinking of Greatorex's son who
lay in her bed in the little room over the kitchen.
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