In the warping shed Mercy Gale plied her work.  It was a separate building adjoining the stores at Bridetown Mill and, like them, impregnated with the distinctive, fat smell of flax and hemp.  Under dusty rafters and on a floor of stone the huge warping reels stood.  They were light, open frameworks that rose from floor to ceiling and turned upon steel rods.  Hither came the full bobbins from the spinning machines to be wound off.  Two dozen of the bobbins hung together on a flat frame or ‘creel’ and through eyes and slots the yarn ran through a ‘hake,’ which deftly crossed the strands so that they ran smoothly and freely.  The bake box rose and fell and lapped the yarn in perfect spirals round the warping reels as they revolved.  The length of a reel of twine varies in different places and countries; but at Bridetown, a Dorset reel was always measured, and it represented twenty-one thousand, six hundred yards.

Mercy Gale was chaining the warp off the reels in great massive coils which would presently depart to be polished and finished at Bridport.  All its multiple forms sprang from the simple yarn.  It would turn into shop and parcel twines; fishing twines for deep sea lines and nets; and by processes of reduplication, swell to cords and shroud laid ropes, hawsers and mighty cables.

A little figure filled the door of the shed and Estelle Waldron appeared.  She shook hands and greeted the worker with friendship, for Estelle was now free of the Mill and greatly prided herself on personally knowing everybody within them.

“Good morning, Mercy,” she said.  “I’ve come to see Nancy Buckler.”

“Good morning, miss.  I know.  She’s going to run in at dinner time to sing you her song.”

“It’s a wonderful song, I believe,” declared Estelle, “and very, very old.  Her grandfather taught it to her before he died, and I want to write it down.  Do you like poetry, Mercy?”

“Can’t say as I do,” confessed the warper.  She was a fair, tall girl.  “I like novels,” she added.  “I love stories, but I haven’t got much use for rhymes.”

“Stories about what?” asked Estelle.  “I have a sort of an idea to start a library, if I can persuade my father to let me.  I believe I could get some books from friends to make a beginning.”

“Stories about adventure,” declared Mercy.  “Most of the girls like love stories; but I don’t care so much about them.  I like stories where big things happen in history.”

“So do I; and then you know you’re reading about what really did happen and about great people who really lived.  I think I can lend you some stories like that.”

Mercy thanked her and Estelle fell silent considering which book from her limited collection would best meet the other’s demand.  Herself she did not read many novels, but loved her books about plants and her poets.  Poetry was precious food to her, and Mr. Churchouse, who also appreciated it, had led her to his special favourites.  For the present, therefore, Estelle was content with Longfellow and Cowper and Wordsworth.  The more dazzling light of Keats and Shelley and Swinburne had yet to dawn for her.

Nancy Buckler arrived presently to sing her song.  Her looks did not belie Nancy.  She was sharp of countenance, with thin cheeks and a prominent nose.  Her voice, too, had a pinch of asperity about it.  By nature she was critical of her fellow creatures.  No man had desired her, and the fact soured her a little and led to a general contempt of the sex.

She smiled for Estelle, however, because the ingenuous child had won her friendship.

“Good morning, miss,” she said.  “If you’ve got a pencil and paper, you can take down the words.”

“But sing them first,” begged the listener.  “I want to hear you sing them to the old tune, because I expect the tune is as old as the words, Nancy.”

“It’s a funny old tune for certain.  I can’t sing it like grandfather did, for all his age.  He croaked it like a machine running, and that seemed the proper way.  But I’ve not got much of a voice.”

“’Tis loud enough, anyway,” said Mercy, “and that’s a virtue.”

“Yes, you can hear what I’m saying,” admitted Miss Buckler, then she sang her song.

“When a twister, a twisting, will twist him a twist,
With the twisting his twist, he the twine doth entwist;
But if one of the twines of the twist doth untwist,
The twine that untwisteth, untwisteth the twist,
Untwisting the twine that entwineth between,
He twists with his twister the two in a twine. 
Then, twice having twisted the twines of his twine,
He twisteth the twine he had twined in twine. 
The twain, that in twining before in the twine,
As twines were entwisted, he now doth untwine,
’Twixt the twain intertwisting a twine more between.”

Nancy gave her remarkable performance in a clear, thin treble.  It was a monotonous melody, but suited the words very well.  She sang slowly and her face and voice exhibited neither light nor shade.  Yet her method suited the words in their exceedingly unemotional appeal.

“It’s the most curious song I ever heard,” cried Estelle, “and you sing it perfectly, because I heard every word.”

Then she brought out pencil and paper, sat in the deep alcove of the window and transcribed Nancy’s verse.

“You must sing that to my father next time you come up,” she said.  “It’s like no other song in the world, I’m sure.”

Sally Groves came in.  She had brought Estelle the seed of a flower from her garden.

“I put it by for you, Miss Waldron,” said the big woman, “because you said you liked it in the fall.”

They talked together while Mercy Gale doffed her overall and woollen bonnet.

“Tell me,” said Estelle, “of a very good sort of wedding present for Mr. Ironsyde, when he marries Sabina next week.”

“A new temper, I should think,” suggested Nancy.

“He can’t help being rather in a temper,” explained Estelle, “because they can’t find a house.”

“Sabina can find plenty,” answered the spinner.  “It’s him that’s so hard to please.”

Sally Groves strove to curb Nancy’s tongue.

“You mind your own business,” she said.  “Mr. Ironsyde wants everything just so, and why not?”

“Because it ain’t a time to be messing about, I should think,” retorted Nancy.  “And it’s for the woman to be considered, not him.”

Then Estelle, in all innocence, asked a shattering question.

“Is it true Sabina is going to have a baby?  One or two girls in the mill told me she was, but I asked my father, and he seemed to be annoyed and said, of course not.  But I hope it’s true it would be lovely for Sabina to have a baby to play with.”

“So it would then,” declared Sally Groves, “but I shouldn’t tell nothing about it for the present, miss.”

“Least said, soonest mended,” said Mercy Gale.

“It’s like this,” explained Sally Groves with clumsy goodness:  “they’ll want to keep it for a surprise, miss, and I dare say they’d be terrible disappointed if they thought anybody knew anything about it yet.”

Nancy Buckler laughed.

“I reckon they would,” she said.

“So don’t you name it, miss,” continued Sally.  “Don’t you name the word yet awhile.”

Estelle nodded.

“I won’t then,” she promised.  “I know how sad it is, if you’ve got a great secret, to find other people know it before you want them to.”

“Beastly sad,” said Nancy, as she went her way, and the child looked after her puzzled.

“I believe Nancy’s jealous of Sabina,” she said.

Then it was Sally Groves who laughed and her merriment shook the billows of her mighty person.

Estelle found herself somewhat depressed as she went home.  Not so much the words as the general spirit of these comments chilled her.  After luncheon she visited her father’s study and talked to him while he smoked.

“What perfectly beautiful thing can I get for Ray and Sabina for a wedding present?”

He cleaned his pipe with one of the crow’s feathers Estelle was used to collect for him.  They stood in vases on the mantel-shelf.

“It’s a puzzler,” confessed Arthur Waldron.

“D’you think Ray has grown bad-tempered, father?”

“Do you?”

“No, I’m sure I don’t.  He is a little different, but that’s because he’s going to be married.  No doubt people do get a little different, then.  But Nancy Buckler at the Mill said she thought the best wedding present for him would be a new temper.”

“That’s the sort of insolent things people say, I suppose, behind his back.  It’s all very unfortunate in my opinion, Estelle.”

“It’s frightfully unfortunate Ray leaving us, because, after he’s married, he must have a house of his own; but it isn’t unfortunate his marrying Sabina, I’m sure.”

“I’m not sure at all,” confessed her father.  His opinion always carried the greatest weight, and she was so much concerned at this announcement that Arthur felt sorry he had spoken.

“You see, Estelle how can I explain?  I think Ray in rather too young to marry.”

“He’s well over twenty.”

“Yes, but he’s young for his age, and the things that he is keen about are not the things that a girl is keen about.  I doubt if he will make Sabina happy.”

“He will if he likes, and I’m sure he will like.  He can always make me happy, so, of course, he can make Sabina.  He’s really tremendously clever and knows all sorts of things.  Oh, don’t think it’s going to be sad, father.  I’m sure they’re both much too wise to do anything that’s going to be sad.  Because if Ray ”

She stopped, for Raymond himself came in.  He had left early that morning to seek a house with Sabina.

“What luck?” said Waldron.

“We’ve found something that’ll do, I think.  Two miles out towards Chidcock.  A garden and a decent paddock and a stable.  But he’ll have to spend some money on the stable.  There’s a doubt if he will the landlord, I mean.  Sabina likes the house, so I hope it will be all right.”

Waldron nodded.

“If it’s Thornton, the horse-dealer, he’ll do what you want.  He’s got houses up there.”

“It isn’t.  I haven’t seen the man yet.”

“Well,” said his friend, “I don’t know what the deuce Estelle and I are going to do without you.  We shall miss you abominably.”

“What shall I do without you?  That’s more to the point.  You’ve got each other for pals I ”

He broke off and Arthur filled the pregnant pause.

“Look here Estelle wants to give you a wedding present, old man; and so do I. And as we haven’t the remotest idea what would be the likeliest thing, don’t stand on ceremony, but tell us.”

“I don’t want anything except to know I shall always be welcome when I drop in.”

“We needn’t tell you that.”

“But you must want thousands of things,” declared Estelle, “everybody does when they’re married.  And if you don’t, I’m sure Sabina does knives and forks and silver tea kettles and pictures for the walls.”

“Married people don’t want pictures, Estelle; they never look at anything but one another.”

She laughed.

“But the poor walls want pictures if you don’t.  I believe the walls wouldn’t feel comfortable without pictures.  Besides you and Sabina can’t sit and look at each other all day.”

“What about a nice little handy ‘jingle’ for her to trundle about in?” asked Waldron.

“As I can’t pull it, old chap, it wouldn’t be much good.  I’m keeping the hunter; but I shan’t be able to keep anything else if that.”

“How would it be if you sold the hunter and got a nice everyday sort of horse that you could ride, or that Sabina could drive?” asked Estelle.

“No,” said Waldron firmly.  “He doesn’t sell his hunter or his guns.  These things stand for a link with the outer world and represent sport, which is quite as important as marriage in the general scheme.”

“I thought to chuck all that and take up golf,” said Raymond.  “There’s a lot in golf they tell me.”

But Waldron shook his head.

“Golf’s all right,” he admitted, “and a great game.  I’m going to take it up myself, and I’m glad it’s coming in, because it will add to the usefulness of a lot of us men who have to fall out of cricket.  There’s a great future for golf, I believe.  But no golf for you yet.  You won’t run any more and you’ll drop out of football, as only ‘pros.’ play much after marriage.  But you must shoot as much as possible, and hunt a bit, and play cricket still.”

This comforting programme soothed Raymond.

“That’s all right, but I’ve got to find work.  I was just beginning to feel keen on work; but now flit, Estelle, my duck.  I want to have a yarn with father.”

The girl departed.

“Do let it be a ‘jingle,’ Ray,” she begged, and then was gone.

“It’s my damned brother,” went on Raymond.

“He’ll come round and ask you to go back, as soon as you’re fixed up and everything’s all right.”

“Everything won’t be all right.  Everything’s confoundedly wrong.  Think what it is for a proud man to be at the mercy of an aunt, and to look to her for his keep.  If anything could make me sick of the whole show, it’s that.”

“I shouldn’t feel it so.  She’s keen on you, and keen on Sabina; and she knows you can’t live upon air.  You may be sure also she knows that it won’t last.  Daniel will come round.”

“And if he does?  It’s all the same taking his money.”

“You won’t be taking it; you’ll be earning it.”

“I hate him, like hell, and I hate the thought of working under him all my life.”

“You won’t be under him.  You’ve often said the time was coming when you’d wipe Daniel’s eye and show you were the moving spirit of the Mill.  Well now, when you go back, you must work double tides to do it.”

“He may not take me back, and for many things I’d sooner he didn’t.  We should never be the same to one another after that row.  For two pins, even now, I’d make a bolt, Arthur, and disappear altogether and go abroad and carve out my own way.”

“Don’t talk rot.  You can’t do that.”

But Waldron, in spite of his advice and sanguine prophecies, hid a grave doubt at heart whether, so far as Raymond’s own future was concerned, such a course might not be the wisest.  He felt confident, however, that the younger man would keep his engagements.  Raymond had plenty of pluck and did not lack for a heart, so far as Waldron knew.  Had Sabina been no more than engaged, he must strongly have urged Raymond to drop her and endure the harsh criticism that would have followed:  for an engagement broken appeared a lesser evil than an unhappy mating; but since the position was complicated, he could not feel so and stoutly upheld the marriage on principle, while extremely doubtful of its practical outcome.

They talked for two hours to no purpose and then Estelle called them to tea.