“Ay, fond--fondish, as ye are o’ women--but--eh, lad, ye’ve no love o’ the heather, and the smell of a marsh when it yields to your foot and all but gets ye under. ’Tisn’t the same to ye, Reuben. Ye’ve always a back-thought for the pastures, green i’ winter an’ green i’ spring, and never a change. They’re snugger, Reuben, and snugness was always to your liking.” Gaunt only laughed, and they ran down the track, hand in hand, till they reached the wall that guarded the intaken fields. Linsall village was bigger to them now, and they could see that it was thick with folk. “They’ll be dancing on the green to-night?” said Peggy, after they had climbed the wall and were walking soberly down the long, raking field that led them to the Linsall road. “Well, I feel like dancing, Reuben. My feet were never so light under me--” “Oh, now, be quiet!” muttered Reuben, with a touch of superstition and a passing sense of disquiet. “We’re not near a rowan-tree, Peggy, to touch it for luck when we boast.” “We’ll risk it, Reuben! I seem to have no wish at all, save just to dance and dance wi’ ye on Linsall Green. ’Tis my head, maybe, that’s light and not my heels.” They were on the road now, and Peggy’s mood grew lighter still as she saw the booths, the tents, the knots of chattering country folk that covered Linsall Green. She relished the open admiration shown her as she passed; she welcomed the sly gibes of a few ill-natured and plainer women; for she knew that Reuben would like her better if she were the admitted beauty of the day. This strapping lass with the clear judgment and the capable hands whenever life’s work had to be done, was in playtime as simple as a child. Gaunt was her good fairy to-day; she loved him with a passionate devotion that surprised her in quieter moments; in all things to-day she wished to please him. They went into the tavern whose front stretched orderly, and long, and grey, the whole width of the green. Gaunt made her drink red wine with their meal; the taste of it was thin and reedy to Peggy, but she understood vaguely that Reuben thought it a fine thing he was doing. The glass from which she drank it, was shapelier, too, than any she had seen, and she praised the wine, and the meal, and the sunlight that lay white on the white street outside the window. Peggy laughed quietly as they went out into the glare again. “If I never enjoy a day again,” she said, “I mean to take my fill o’ this one.”