LUBIN. Yes, love; wicked, unhappy love. Love what played false when riches fled. Love that has given the heart what was all mine to another. [ISABEL _has been slowly approaching_, _she wears a cotton handkerchief over her head and carries a small bundle tied up in a cloth on her arm_. _Her movements are languid and sad_. MARY. I know of flowers that can heal even the pains of love. ISABEL. [_Coming forward and speaking earnestly_.] O tell me of them quickly, mistress. MARY. Why, are you sick of the same complaint? ISABEL. [_Sinking down on the grass at_ MARY’S _feet_.] So bruised and wounded in the heart that the road from Framilode up here might well have been a hundred miles or more. LUBIN. Framilode? ’Tis there you come from? ISABEL. I was servant at the inn down yonder. Close upon the ferry. Do you know the place, master? LUBIN. [_In deep gloom_.] Ah, the place and the ferry man too. MARY. [_Leaning forward and clasping her hands_.] Him as is there to-day, or him who was? LUBIN. He who was there and left for foreign parts a good three year ago. [ISABEL _covers her face and is shaken by sobs_. LUBIN _leans his elbow on his knee_, _shading his eyes with his hand_. MARY. I have help for all torments in my flowers. Such things be given us for that. ISABEL. [_Looking up_.] You be gentle in your voices mistress. ’Tis like when a quist do sing, as you speaks. MARY. Then do both of you tell your sorrow. ’Twill be strange if I do not find sommat that will lighten your burdens for you. LUBIN. ’Twas at Moat Farm I was born and bred. MARY. Close up to Daniels yonder? LUBIN. The same. Rose-Anna of the Mill and I—we courted and was like to marry. But there came misfortune and I lost my all. She would not take a poor man, so I left these parts and got to be what you do see me now—just a day labourer. ISABEL. Mine, ’tis the same tale, very nigh. Robert the ferry-man and me, we loved and was to have got us wedded, only there came a powerful rich gentleman what used to go fishing along of Robert. ’Twas he that ’ticed my lover off to foreign parts. LUBIN. [_With a heavy sigh_.] These things are almost more than I can bear. ISABEL. At first he wrote his letters very often. Then ’twas seldom like. Then ’twas never. And then there comed a day—[_She is interrupted by her weeping_. MARY. Try to get out your story—you can let the tears run afterwards if you have a mind. ISABEL. There comed a day when I did meet a fisherman from Bristol. He brought me news of Robert back from the seas, clothed in fine stuff with money in the pockets of him, horse and carriage, and just about to wed. LUBIN. Did he name the maid? ISABEL. Rose-Anna she was called, of Daniel’s mill up yonder. LUBIN. Rose-Anna—She with whom I was to have gone to church. MARY. Here is a tangle worse nor any briar rose. ISABEL. O ’twas such beautiful times as we did have down by the riverside, him and me.