9
daughter to live in the Echlins’ house. The women were given the two
lower rooms of the house, one as a bedroom and one as a living room, She
effect of the Gomartins moving in became quickly evident. Ir. the house,
meals were more punctual and a greater variety of dishes appeared on the
table. Beds were no longer confused heaps of malodorous clothes. Outside,
in the work around the' f»rm, Martha and Gar ah took their share of the
harvesting. Sarah had an amazing capacity for hard work, -he was deft
and quick in her movements, and brought her strength to the point where it
would have greatest effect, she sould have been considered' a graceful girl,
but she neutralised that by her cold and detached expression.
The Echlins and the Gomartins were members of the same Presbyterian
congregation, and on Sundays the five members of the two families drove in
the trap to the meeting-house. It had been the custom of the two young men,
when the horse was stabled and the trap put away, to join the young men and
women in the churchyard where they spent the few minutes before the service
began in talking and flirting with each other. On the second Sabbath after
they had driven to the church with the Gomartins, Frank was surprised to see
his brother hasten into the church with only a nod to his old companions, he
sat on a flat gravestone, gazing thoughtfully at the doorway through which
Hamilton had disappeared, and quite unmindful of the talk of the young men
around him.
Ihe rain and winds which had beaten the corn until it lay tangled like
the hair of a sleeping man, gave way to serene weather and the harvesters
eked out each hour of light in the mellow August evening. Andrew opened
the fields with his scythe, Hamilton or Frank rode the reaper, while Martha,
Sarah and Peter Sampson, a labouring man, gathered and tied. Behind them
Andrew stocked the shealves. Franks satisfaction at Sarah mild indifference
