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Mrs. Goyte came darting past the end of the house, her head sticking forward in sharp scrutiny. She saw me, and came forward.

“Have you got Joey?” she cried sharply, as if I were a thief.

I opened the bag, and he flopped out, flapping as if he hated the touch of the snow, now. She gathered him up and put her lips to his beak. She was flushed and handsome, her eyes bright, her hair slack, thick, but more witch-like than ever. She did not speak.

She had been followed by a grey-haired woman with a round, rather sallow face and a slightly hostile bearing.

“Did you bring him with you, then?” she asked sharply. I answered that I had rescued him the previous evening.

From the background slowly approached a slender man with a grey moustache and large patches on his trousers.

“You’ve got ‘im back ‘gain, Ah see,” he said to his daughter-in-law. His wife explained how I had found Joey.

“Ah,” went on the grey man. “It wor our Alfred scarred him off, back your life. He must ‘a’ flyed ower t’ valley. Tha ma’ thank thy stars as ‘e wor fun, Maggie. ‘E’d a bin froze. They a bit nesh, you know,” he concluded to me.

“They are,” I answered. “This isn’t their country.”

“No, it isna,” replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face young and almost delicate, like a young man’s. His blue eyes twinkled with some inscrutable source of pleasure, his skin was fine and tender, his nose delicately arched. His grey hair being slightly ruffled, he had a debonnair look, as of a youth who is in love.

“We mun tell ‘im it’s come,” he said slowly, and turning he called:

“Alfred–Alfred! Wheer’s ter gotten to?”

Then he turned again to the group.

“Get up, then, Maggie, lass, get up wi’ thee. Tha ma’es too much o’ th’ bod.”

A young man approached, limping, wearing a thick short coat and knee-breeches. He was Danish-looking, broad at the loins.

“I’s come back, then,” said the father to the son–“leastwise, he’s bin browt back, flyed ower the Griff Low.”

The son looked at me. He had a devil-may-care bearing, his cap on one side, his hands stuck in the front pockets of his breeches. But he said nothing.

“Shall you come in a minute, Master?” said the elderly woman, to me.

“Ay, come in an’ ha’e a cup o’ tea or summat. You’ll do wi’ summat, carryin’ that bod. Come on, Maggie wench, let’s go in.”

So we went indoors, into the rather stuffy, overcrowded living-room, that was too cosy and too warm. The son followed last, standing in the doorway. The father talked to me. Maggie put out the tea-cups. The mother went into the dairy again.

“Tha’lt rouse thysen up a bit again now, Maggie,” the father-in-law said–and then to me: “‘Er’s not bin very bright sin’ Alfred come whoam, an’ the bod flyed awee. ‘E come whoam a Wednesday night, Alfred did. But ay, you knowed, didna yer. Ay, ‘e comed ‘a Wednesday–an’ I reckon there wor a bit of a to-do between ’em, worn’t there, Maggie?”

He twinkled maliciously to his daughter-in-law, who was flushed brilliant and handsome.

“Oh, be quiet, father. You’re wound up, by the sound of you,” she said to him, as if crossly. But she could never be cross with him.

“‘Er’s got ‘er colour back this mornin’,” continued the father-in-law slowly. “It’s bin heavy weather wi’ ‘er this last two days. Ay–‘er’s bin north-east sin ‘er seed you a Wednesday.”

“Father, do stop talking. You’d wear the leg off an iron pot. I can’t think where you’ve found your tongue, all of a sudden,” said Maggie, with caressive sharpness.