“Ay, well, it’ll be safe enough here,” Agnes said. “It’ll be safe as the Bible and precious as bright gold.” She went to a brass-handled drawer and whipped out a snowy square of a cloth which she laid across the strings. “Thomas mun make you a box for it,” she went on; “a nice warm box as’ll keep it out o’ the damp.” Thomas said he would start on it first thing, in a tone that meant he was glad of something to say. Of course he was quite sure now, as Agnes was sure, but as yet he could not copy her conversational ease. “A grand warm box’ll be just the ticket,” he said. “It’ll be better and snugger a deal when it’s gitten a box.” Kit said they were right kind, and settled himself in his chair, staring in front of him at the shining hearth. He did not like to say that he would not have the box, and that he hated to see the fiddle covered up. The white cloth looked for all the world like a little shroud, and the box would be only a coffin in his eyes. He did not mean to have the box whatever they said, but it wouldn’t be manners to tell them so right off. There seemed no letting him and his fiddle alone, though all that folks could do for him was to let him alone. It was just the way Thomas had bothered him in the field, showing him things he didn’t want to see. Well, he would slip away from them later on, but now he must mind his manners and let be. He roused himself with a little attempt at cheer. “Ay, well, I’ve landed at last!” he said, with a smile. “I never thought I’d see the old spot again.” Thomas and Agnes gave him a double beam. “It’s a sight for sore eyes to see you here, I’m sure!” “Marget wasn’t best pleased at me coming away,” the old man said. “She’s had a deal to say about it, these last few week.” “And wi’ the rough side of her tongue for it, I’ll swear!” Thomas laughed. “I heard tell she was taking on and terble wild. Ay, well, you’ll have none o’ that wi’ Agnes, don’t you fret.” Agnes threw him a laughing glance, and said it was early days to talk like that. Happen, if he waited, she would show him different, later on. Thomas, however, wasn’t to be put off. “There isn’t a smarter lass in the country-side,” he said, “and she’s a rare hand at managing a house.” The showman in him was aching to be out, and he was driven as well by an urgent need that he didn’t know how to explain. It was as if he was bent upon manufacturing a barrier of good things, an insurmountable barrier of comforts and kind words.... He had a sense of delicacy about beginning to praise the house, but it couldn’t be taken amiss if he praised his wife. “She’ll do you that well you’ll think you’re the king,” he said, “and she’s as bonny as they make ’em, as you can see for yourself.” “Marget’s not much in the way o’ looks,” Kit said. “She’s the cankert sort, is Marget, wi’ a nippit nose.”