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for. Sarah's mother with her cold reproachful look. As if he were bound
to go when she said, go; and come when she said, come. To hell with ye,
he said inwardly, you’re nothing to me.
But his gesture stirred the old woman. Not content with knowing
that her silence filled both the young people with remorse and anger
she turned to her daughter, ’ Where were ye, when I was at church?” she
asked.
"We went over the fields to the head o’ the brae" answered the
girl without raising her eye3 from her plate.
“Waren’t ye left tae look after the house?" demanded Martha.
"There now, Martha" interrupted Frank angrily, "the house didna
run away."
Mrtha ignored him. Her whole attention was fixed on her daughter.
”Since when hae ye taken to skiltin the fields on a sabbath? Look at
yourself - you’re as tossed and through-other as if you’d been doing a
day’s work. What ways that to behave on the Sabbath?"
Sarah sprang up from the table* "Lay me alone!” she cried. "I’ll
go out in the fields when I want, Sunday or any other day!”
Martha had risen to her feet also, her face flushed and fingers
plucking at her apron. Hamilton, who had been eating stolidly during
all this talk, now rapped the table irritably with his spoon. "Sit
down, Martha," he said "and let us get on wi’ our dinner."'
Martha turned on him. "Listen to me, Hamilton Echlin, and you
Sarah, and you Frank. If there’s not a charge in this house I'm going
tae leave it and go back tae Banyil. God forgive me - I should ha’
spoken out before. But I’m no going to see my daughter run about a
heathen, if the memory o’ your father won’t send yous t’church, as
