The miller stood still and stared a minute, and then he broke into his loud, resonant laugh.
“Oh, ye bain’t no call to be sorry for me,” he said cheerily. “I be gettin’ on fust-rate, thank ye,” and he shifted the brown-paper parcel from one arm to the other. “We was but passin’ opinions on the breeds and pedigrees o’ the women-folk, as far as I be aware. Why, I’d rather ’ave all the pumps on at once than see the ricks a-burnin’ for ten minutes. Each man to ’is taste, neighbour, and thank you for a ’alf hour’s exchange ’o notions, so to speak.”
Hewson smiled, a trifle bewildered.
“That be it,” said he genially. “Each man to ’is taste, or in other words—let every one put up wi’ what ’e ’ave got. A blemish is a blemish, but the mare may be sound for all that.”
“Sound!” began the miller, half angrily. But he had reached the top of the hill; his own garden-gate was in sight, and his own house-door opened and sent a flood of yellow light down the walk to put out the white moonbeams on the hollyhocks and the sunflowers.
“Right ye be, man,” cried he good-humouredly, slapping his comrade noisily on the back. “We won’t fight over ’em; there’s blemishes, I dare say, but the mares be both sound for all that.”
And on the doorstep the women were exchanging a last word.
The miller’s wife, warmed to further unbosoming by a seductive cup of tea, was pouring final confidences into Mrs. Hewson’s willing ear.
“If you’d believe it,” she was saying shyly, “there were a time when I were nigh to fancyin’ Mr. Hewson myself. Not that there iver were much atween us, and I don’t know as I could say ’e iver come nigh to askin’ me. But ’e were that kind and gentle, I thought as ’e’d make a nice, considerin’ ’usbin’, and I thought I could ha’ got him if I’d tried. But, Lor’, now I know ’e’ve so little sperrit, I don’t think as it’d ha’ suited at all.”
“Oh, don’t ye!” retorted Martha, with a good dash of honest viciousness in her tones which the other was too dense or too pre-occupied to notice.