"You may call it six," said Colonel Eldridge. "It was mended last in the winter before the war, and it was mostly your doing, Jackson."
"Yes, sir. And there was a tidy bit of metal got out of the lower quarry what we didn't use all of. You'd only have to break it up and lead it; and lead some gravel to put on it. 'Tis true that I did say to Pegg and these two that us four 'ud make a good job of it in four weeks, maybe five—I wouldn't undertake not to make a tidy job of it in less. Put it off and it'll take longer."
Colonel Eldridge sat considering, his eyes on the papers in front of him. "What about the other two who were taken on at the Grange?" he asked.
"They've gone off, sir," said Dell. "They didn't like the job, and wouldn't have stayed anyhow."
"They have gone off? They're not hanging about the village?"
"No, sir. They took their money, and went off by train to Southampton where they belong to the docks."
"Where are you two lodging?"
They told him, and he made no comment, except to say: "If I take you on, you'll have to work under Jackson, and you'll have to keep quiet in the village. A glass or two at the inn I don't mind, but we never have any trouble with drink at Hayslope, and I wouldn't put up with it."
Chambers looked scandalized, and asserted himself to be a teetotaller. Dell said: "I'm a respectable man, Colonel, and if anybody's been putting it about that I'm otherwise that man's a liar, begging your pardon for the language."
"Very well. I accept what you say. I'll take the four of you on from to-morrow, by the week. What wages were you getting at the Grange?"