He had been a
riotous, roystering puppy, mad with the joy of life, when she was already
a tottering, hobbling dame; now he was just a blind, breathing carcase,
nothing more, and she still worked with frail energy, still swept and
baked and washed, fetched and carried. If there were something in these
wise old dogs that did not perish utterly with death, Emma used to think
to herself, what generations of ghost-dogs there must be out on those
hills, that Martha had reared and fed and tended and spoken a last good-
bye word to in that old kitchen. And what memories she must have of
human generations that had passed away in her time. It was difficult for
anyone, let alone a stranger like Emma, to get her to talk of the days
that had been; her shrill, quavering speech was of doors that had been
left unfastened, pails that had got mislaid, calves whose feeding-time
was overdue, and the various little faults and lapses that chequer a
farmhouse routine. Now and again, when election time came round, she
would unstore her recollections of the old names round which the fight
had waged in the days gone by. There had been a Palmerston, that had
been a name down Tiverton way; Tiverton was not a far journey as the crow
flies, but to Martha it was almost a foreign country. Later there had
been Northcotes and Aclands, and many other newer names that she had
forgotten; the names changed, but it was always Libruls and Toories,
Yellows and Blues. And they always quarrelled and shouted as to who was
right and who was wrong.
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