‘So he will get his reduction?’
‘If he builds the barn. I shall try to see his wife; she has not been brought up to farming, and whether they get on or not, all depends on the way she may take it up. What are you looking at?’
‘That lovely wreath of Traveller’s Joy.’
‘Do you want it?’
‘No, thank you, it is too beautiful where it is.’
‘There is a piece, going from tree to tree, by the Hiltonbury Gate, as thick as my arm; I just saved it when West was going to cut it down with the copsewood.’
‘Well, you really are improving at last!’
‘I thought you would never let me hear the last of it; besides, there was a thrush’s nest in it.’
By and by the cousins arrived at a field where Humfrey’s portly shorthorns were coming forth after their milking, under the pilotage of an old white-headed man, bent nearly double,
uncovering his head as the squire touched his hat in response, and shouted, ‘Good morning.’