“How now, Joe,” cried the farmer. “What be the matter, man? What’s amiss, eh?”
“You mustn’t go any further. Bide where ye are, measter. Dunno’ attempt to go any further,” said Joe.
“And why not? Speak—can’t you? Mr. Philip’s been throwed?”
“Worse than that,” said the man. “Oh, Mr. Jamblin, ye mustn’t go no further!”
He laid hold of the farmer by the coat, and drew him towards the trees by the side of the road.
Jamblin looked at him, and as he did so his face became preternaturally pale. There was that in the conduct of Joe which made his master tremble like an aspen bough beneath the blast.
“Summat’s happened,” said the farmer, in a low hoarse whisper.
Joe nodded, but durst not trust himself to speak. There was a pause, after which Jamblin said, in a voice of perfect calmness—
“Tell me what it is?”
He was a huge brawny fellow, with a bronzed face, and having hands with thews and sinews like a giant, was this Joe Doughty; but when the farmer’s words fell upon his ears—they were spoken in a tone altogether so different to that he had been accustomed to hear—that, athlete and giant as he was, he seated himself on a felled tree which lay by the side of the road, and burst into tears.