Lanty ran into Denny, standing in tongue-tied admiration before a Miss Braithwaite. So had he stood all afternoon, from the first whirl of the swinging churn to the proud moment when she had laid before the examiner the four best pounds of the day. He started when Lanty tapped him on the shoulder.
“Your wife will have plenty of sale for her butter, Thomas!” he told him slyly.
Denny reddened hotly, and found his tongue with a rush.
“Ay! an’ yours’ll likely be her first customer!” he retorted briskly, with meaning, and chuckled as he saw his embarrassment reflected. He had caught the episode of the duck-egg. Lanty went away hurriedly.
Wiggie joined him on the slope, with Edgar and his Southern wife, and they went down together to Watters, to find Dandy and the examiner putting the last touches to the waiting meal, while Helwise rooked the instructress for a bazaar. Harriet and Stubbs followed with the rolling ruffians, and then Bluecaster. Bluecaster had taken the Little Great Quetta to see the horse stabled, because you may sometimes look on at interesting things, even if you are precious. And lastly, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw with their other butter-supporting guests, who were still as pleased about everything as ever. They did not stay long, though, having some distance to drive; and then the Quetta-lings were able to let themselves go with Italian shrieks and wild, operatic gestures. Only the Little Great Quetta sat silent and could not eat for quivering excitement, because a real, live, large horse had munched out of his thin, little hand; until Bluecaster, with a furtive air of removing his neighbour’s landmark, took him on his knee and fed him himself.
Lanty looked round the big, joyous, crowded room, and in spite of the buzz of talk and the soaring, staccato shrieks, felt again the peace that had met him, months ago, on his first entrance. He was happy, too. It came to him with a shock, since he had been so sure that he could never be happy again. Hamer made him happy, moving about gloriously contented with the swarm under his roof; and Mrs. Shaw, presiding with conjuring cleverness over her teapot. Dandy had given hers to Helwise, who loved the effect of her white fingers on the silver handle, and took care to do nothing more active than incline the spout gently towards each cup. Dandy did not make him feel happy, though. She made him feel breathless, and as if he would like to climb on the table and shriek with the Quetta-lings. It was safer not to look at her.
Wiggie, however, murmuring at his side, busily bridging a big gap with his summer experiences, filled him, as usual, with little chuckles of content. Lanty noticed that he never forgot to turn his face so that his brother might read his words. Presently he went a step further back still.
“Did I ever tell you that all the players in that hockey-match turned up again, one after another, to say how sorry they were I was ill? I thought it so awfully decent of them! It helped a lot, I can tell you. Saunders did say that, if only I had stayed in my place, he could have done all the work and perhaps saved me something, but that’s—well—just Saunders, isn’t it?—and he brought me a book on the actinic force of light, to cheer me up a bit when I was getting better. Do you know anything about the actinic force of light? Neither did I till I met Saunders, but I do now. I learned it up to talk to him. The little curate said that he had saved my life, and that I owed him a penny bun. Harriet was very angry—you’ve no idea! She said there was plenty of food in the kitchen, and that he had done nothing but sit still while a motor-car took him somewhere, and that anybody, even an idiot or a parson, could have done that. The curate said the point was that he was the body on the spot. It was his motto. In the family, he said, like dear old Stubbs. I like him. He lent me a novel by—perhaps I had better not say it out loud. The others were all awfully kind, too. I liked them. I remarked to Harriet one day that they seemed to be really keen on music up here, and she just snorted. She said: ‘You don’t imagine, do you, that they care a straw about your being a singer, any more than I do? They’re simply stuck on you because you stole that goal!’ Edgar wasn’t a bit pleased—were you, old man?—and Gardner said awful things, but I think I liked it.”
“He is the Great Quetta!” Edgar put in, with a note of indignation in his deep, curious voice.
Wiggie laughed.