The hampers were passed up, and small, round butter-baskets, and parcels wrapped clumsily in thick brown paper. Each was a tribute from some one among the villagers who had felt no need till now to express his regard for the smith; and each had a dozen eggs in it, or a spice-loaf, or some other farewell gift of viands, until David broke into a laugh. “Nay, lads, nay!” he protested. “’Twill take another horse to help pull all these parcels to Shepston--let alone a few odd men to help me get through wi’ what’s inside them.” “Oh, tuts!” roared Farmer Hirst, striving to cover his grief that David had insisted on leaving Garth. “’Tis a long step and a far step fro’ Garth to Canada. Ye may varry weel be hungry ’twixt this and there.” “The Queen’s waiting,” said Will the Driver, as he flicked the mail-bags with the end of his whip. Cilla slipped from the shelter of her father’s shoulders, and came and reached up a hand to David. He could make nothing of the girl’s face, for it was both gay and downcast. He felt something slipped into his palm, he heard her bid him a quiet farewell, and she was gone. The team of three started forward, and a shrill cry came to them from behind. Will the Driver pulled up, as if by instinct--an instinct he despised--and Widow Lister ran panting to the coach. She brought no gift, but then no one would expect such from a widow-body. “I couldn’t let ye go without saying good-by, David,” she said, out of breath. “Besides, I want ye to take a message to your aunt Joanna yonder i’ Canada. ’Tis fifteen years and a day since she borrowed a saucepan fro’ me, and went off at her marriage, and forgot to return it.” “Widow, we’re late,” said Will, his good temper near to the breaking point. “Ay, but--David--tell Joanna it isn’t as I want the saucepan back--’tis burned through t’ bottom by now, no doubt--but I’m not one to like bearing a grudge all these years. If she’d only say she war sorry, now--” The driver flicked his team, and the white road slipped behind them, and David had started on the track to Canada. For a half-mile Will was silent. Then he spoke, looking steadily at his horses’ ears. “Seems to me that one o’ two things is bound to happen,” he said. “Either Widow Lister is going to leave the road, or I am. There’s not room for the two of us.” He waited for David’s answer; and, getting none, went forward with his grievance, not troubling to turn his head. “A woman that can carry a saucepan grudge for fifteen years--gee up, lass Polly, we’ve time to make up!--is a woman that cannot help scaring a man. ’Tis not just that,” he broke off, still flicking the ears of his team with a gentle, contemplative whip, as if he were casting for trout, “’tis not just that bothers me. ’Tis her durned, queer way o’ being out o’ breath, and growing plumper on ’t every day, an’ holding up the mail three days out o’ the seven, year in, year out. And the widow allus chooses her three days--days when we chance to be late, I mean.”