Then she put on boots and shawl, tied her
bonnet, and slung a second pair of boots across her arm: for the roads
were heavy and she would leave the muddy pair with a friend who lived at
the entrance of the town, not choosing to appear untidy as she walked up
the Fore Street. These arrangements made, she went to seek her husband,
who was busy planing a coffin-lid in the workshop behind the cottage,
and ruminating upon to-morrow's sermon.
"You'll be about startin'," he said, lifting his head and pushing his
spectacles up over his eye-brows.
Naomi set her basket down on his work-table, and drew her breath back
between her teeth--which is the Cornish mode of saying "Yes." "I want
you to make me a couple of skivers," she said. "Aun' Hambly sent over
word she'd a brace o' chicken for me to sell, an' I was to call for
'em: an' I'd be ashamed to sell a fowl the way she skivers it."
William set down his plane, picked up an odd scrap of wood and cut out
the skewers with his pocket-knife; while Naomi watched with a smile
on her face. Whether or no William had recovered her soul, as he
promised, she had certainly given her heart into his keeping.
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