"I'll not hold it against her," said the Duke. "She looks the better Duchess of the two of us."
Mrs. Sowerby looked at him, and then, unexpectedly, she laughed—a short, tired, surprised laugh—and put her apron to her mouth.
"Our Matthew's in your house, Your Grace," she said. "Second footman."
"I know. He bowed to me on Saturday. It was the best bow I've had since I came into this. He made Miss Thorley look as if she'd been struck by lightning."
"So I heard," said Mrs. Sowerby, and looked at Kezia, and Kezia, to her own great surprise, found that she was laughing too.
They sat in Bet Sowerby's kitchen and drank small beer out of horn cups, and the Duke learned that the second cow, the young red one, had been bought in May with Matthew's first quarter's wages, so that Mrs. Sowerby could sell the milk at the Abbey back door and keep herself through the winter; and that Matthew had not had a quarter's wages since; and that if the stint was to be one beast, it would be the red cow that went to the pound, because it was the younger and would fetch more for the poundage.
"Matthew's not to know I told you," said Bet Sowerby. "He'd be shamed."
"He'll not hear it from me," said the Duke.
On the way back across the common, he walked for a long while without speaking. The sky had come down low again, and the geese had settled, and the brook went along beside them, brown and full, talking to itself.
"Well?" said Kezia at last.
"You told me not to ask you what you think of me," he said. "You didn't say I couldn't tell you what I think of myself."
"I would rather you didn't."
"Then I'll not." He looked at the gorse. "Show me the rolls."