Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart Page A

of having the issue taken out of my hands that I saw the red face split into a beaming smile, and heard him say, in a broad country voice: "Why, Miss Annabel!"
    There was the ruddy face, the blue eyes, the huge forearm bared to the elbow, and marked with the scar where the bull had caught him. Bates, head cattleman at Whitescar. You'll {now him straight away, Con had said. But I didn't venture the name. The lessons of the past three weeks still hummed in my head like a hive of bees: Take it slowly. Don't rush your fences. Never be too sure.... And here was the first fence. Tell the truth wherever possible. I told it. I said with genuine pleasure: "You knew me! How wonderful! It makes me feel as if I were really coming home!" I put out both hands and he took them as if the gesture, from me, was a natural one. His grip nearly lifted me from the ground. The merle collie running at his heels circled round us, lifting a lip and sniffing the back of my legs in a disconcerting manner.
    "Knew you?" His voice was gruff with pleasure. "That I did, the minute you come over the top there. Even if Miss Dermott hadn't tell't us you were coming, I'd 'a known you a mile off across the field, lass!
    We're all uncommon glad to have you back, and that's a fact."
    "It's marvellous to be here. How are you? You look fine, I don't think you can be a day older! Not eight years, anyway!"
    "I'm grand, and Mrs. Bates, too. You'd know I married Betsy, now? They'd tell you, maybe? Aye . . . Well, she's in a rare taking with your coming home, spent all morning baking and turning the place upside down, and Miss Dermott along with her. You'll likely find there's tea-cakes and singin' hinnies for your tea."
    "Singin' hinnies?"
    "Nay, don't tell me you've forgotten! That I'll not believe. You used to tease for them every day when you was a bairn."
    "No, I hadn't forgotten. It was just—hearing the name again. So—so like home." I swallowed. "How sweet of her to remember. I'm longing to see her again. How's Grandfather, Mr. Bates?"
    "Why, he's champion, for his age. He's always well enough, mind you, in the dry weather; it's the damp that gets at his back. It's arthritis—you knew that? and there's times when he can hardly get about at all. And now they say there's this other trouble forby. But you'll have heard about that, too, likely? Miss Dermott said you'd telephoned yesterday and asked them to break it gentle-like to your Granda. They’d tell you all the news?"
    "Yes. I—I didn't quite know what to do. I thought of writing, but then I thought, if I telephoned Con, it might be easier. Miss Dermott answered; the others were out, and, well—we had a long talk. She told me how things were, and she said she'd get Con to break it to Grandfather. I hadn't known about Grandfather's stroke, so it's just as well I didn't just write to him out of the blue. And anyway, I wouldn't have dared just walk right in here and give everyone a shock."
    His voice was rough. "There's not many dies of that sort of shock, Miss Annabel."
    "That's ... sweet of you. Well, Miss Dermott told me quite a lot of the news.. .. I'm glad Grandfather keeps so well on the whole."
    "Aye, he's well enough." A quick glance under puckered eyelids. "Reckon you'll see a change, though."
    "I'm afraid I probably shall. It's been a long time."
    "It has that. It was a poor day's work you did, Miss Annabel, when you left us."
    "I know," I said. "Don't blame me too much."
    "I've no call to blame you, lass. I know naught about it, but that you and your Granda fell out," He grinned, softly. "I know what he's like, none better, I've known him these thirty years. I never take no notice of him, rain or shine, and him and me gets on, but you're too like your dad to sit still and hold your tongue. Winslows is all the same, I reckon. Maybe if you'd been a mite older, you'd 'a known his bark was always worse than his bite, but you were nobbut a bit lass at the time, and I reckon you'd troubles of your own, at