“There ain’t no way out into the road,” objected Tuvvy.
“There is,” said Dennis; “I’ve often been. You’d have to cross over part of one of Aunt Katharine’s fields, and then there’s a stile into the Upwell road. It’s as straight as anything.”
“Happen Miss Chester mightn’t like to see me tramping over her field,” said Tuvvy.
“She won’t mind a bit. Besides, I’ll ask her to let you. So that’s all right,” said Dennis jumping up, “and I shall go and speak to Mr Solace at once.”
He was nearly out of the barn when Tuvvy’s voice checked him.
“Hold hard, master,” it said; “I ain’t given that there promise you was talking on.”
“But you will,” said Dennis, coming close up to the carpenter’s bench, and looking earnestly up into Tuvvy’s dark face; “of course you will—won’t you?”
Tuvvy made no answer for a moment. He seemed puzzled to account for all this interest on Dennis’s part, but at length he held out a hand almost black from hard work, and said:
“Well master, here’s my hand on it. I’ll do my best.”
Dennis put his own into it seriously.