One of those Townes children walked back with me as I came from my work to-day. It was the one they call Hilda. She's a pretty enough child, but nothing like what Townes thinks. The way that man talks about them, as if they were a set of angels, makes me laugh. Thank God, I've none of my own to make a fool of myself about. It's lucky for Townes, too, that I'm not a married man, for otherwise I should have had the lodge and he wouldn't, and the lodge is a lot better than anything he could afford out of his wages.
About half-past eight to-night Townes came round to the cottage to see me, and pulled out a rabbit from under his coat.
"I don't know whether you'd care about anything in this way, Mr Adam," he said. "It's a nice fat young rabbit."
"Where did you get that, Townes?" I said.
He gave a sheepish kind of grin. "Well," he said, "there's plenty of them about, aren't there? I count they're more a pest than anything else. Anyway, one rabbit more or less won't matter to 'em up at the House. It's not as if rabbits were game."
"I don't know nothing about that, Townes, and I don't care nothing, either. I won't have it. As you've got it, you'd better take it back to your wife; and if I find you getting any more, you'll get the sack as sure as my name's Stephen Adam."
"All right, Mr Adam," he said. "That shall be as you say, of course. I thought perhaps, rabbits not coming into your province, you wouldn't mind. Then I wanted to call round too, to say how much obliged I am to you."
"What for?" I said.
"About those melons. There was a holy row about it, wasn't there? I don't deny it. You told me yourself to shut those lights, and I said I would. How I came to miss it I can't think. Something or other must have got into my head."