“What’s the trouble, Wolf?” Lancaster asked gently, as the clatter of hoofs and the jingle of harness came in through the open window. “What’s put the lad wrong?”
“Nowt but what puts every lad wrong, soon or late!” the other answered bitterly, sinking back. “It’s Dockeray’s lass, her as went to boarding school for a sight o’ years, and come back with a look an’ a way with her fit to beat a ladyship! Lup was always set on her, ay, an’ she on him, if seeing’s believing. They’ve been courtin’ this year past and more, going to singin’-practice an’ pill-gills an’ such-like, and I’ve never known her give him a wrong word. And then, when it comes to taking on the farm and getting wed and settling down, she’ll have none of it! She was at our spot to supper, the night it first come up. Whinnerahs and Dockeray’s have always been rarely thick, you’ll think on, living alongside, just them two selves right away over yon. You could never put a pin between ’em. Well, as I told you, she was having a bit o’ supper with us when I first spoke. I’d had it in my mind for long, ever since I was badly, but I’d put it by, time an’ again, and let it be. Likely I was no more ready than most to be set on the shelf, but the lad’s getting on, an’ he’d a right to his chance. I’d had a hard day, too, and it came over me sudden-like as I was done for good, and in a queer sort o’ way I was glad to be through with it all and rest, if it didn’t mean quitting. I thought of the old chair in the corner, and the view of a summer evening, and the sea washing at the wall, an’—an’ all the other things meaning Ninekyrkes and no other spot whatever! I’m not saying any man cares to sit by and see his son master where he’s held the reins, but there was a sort of pleasure in feeling I’d done with my job. I reckon the Almighty sends you that as a kind o’ sop, just to keep you from fretting over hard. And so I just up an’ told them how it was. I said I’d see you, sir, about handing the farm over, and then I says to Lup, ‘Now, Lup, my lad,’ says I, ‘You’ve been courtin’ long enough an’ to spare, and it’s time you settled down. We’ll change jobs this Martinmas, an’ you can get wed, an’, please God, there’ll be Whinnerahs at Ninekyrkes for many a long year to come. It’s a bargain, lad, that’s what it is! So now, Miss Francey, don’t you keep him waiting. You be getting your gear an’ such-like together, and we’ll have the wedding as soon as ever you can make shape to be ready!’ Yon’s what I said, an’ I reckon I put it real smart, eh, Mr. Lancaster?”—the agent nodded response to the appeal for commendation—“but happen it was over-smart-like for Dockeray’s lass! She never so much as coloured up or turned shy, but she round with her head very slow an’ looked at me that calm—she’s got quality’s ways with her, sir, as I said, very soft an’ kind, but with something holding her off at the back—an’ says she, in her whyet voice, ‘And what’s all that to do with me, Mr. Whinnerah?’ Eh! but I was rarely bothered just for the minute! When I come to think of it, there’d never been owt in black an’ white, after a manner of speaking. Lup’s not one for tongue-wagging, you’ll have found that for yourself. For all I could ha’ sworn to there might never have been talk o’ weddin’ betwixt ’em at all; but they’d been together a deal, an’—an’—why, I’d seen Lup’s eyes on her acrost table, an’ I’d be like to know, I reckon, when a Whinnerah’s set on a lass! So after a bit o’ coughing and fidging, thinking she was happen likely just joking us, I got out as we’d always taken it as she and Lup was sweethearts.
“‘Happen we be!’ says she, only in quality-talk, and she gives Lup the sweetest little look sideways as set him shining like the Angel Gabriel!
“‘Why, then, what there’s nowt to find!’ says I, trying not to get above myself. ‘If you’re courtin’, you’re likely thinking to get wed, and now’s your time. What’s to hinder? The farm’s ready, and the lad.’
“‘Ay, but not the lass!’ says she, spirity-like. ‘The right time’s my own time, and I’ll come when I choose!’
“‘You’ll come when Lup chooses!’ I said, fair lossing my temper out an’ out. ‘Tell her that, my lad. Tell her she’ll come when she’s fetched!’
“But Lup just sat there like a half-rocked ’un, glowering at nowt an’ saying less, as he did just now, and then my lady gets on her feet and has her talk out.
“‘You mean kindly,’ she says, ‘and to be fair and just, but you don’t understand how it looks to me. It’s the way things are worked, I know. A lad slaves for his father for years after he’s a man grown, with never so much as a penny to put between his teeth, and at last, when the old man’s tired, he gives his son his chance. Round comes the agent, and it’s, “You’re for getting wed, I reckon? Right!” (if it is right), and the contract’s made. The lass goes into the contract along with the farm, and along at the beck of the three men to the church. Well, that’s your way, but it’s not mine, and you may as well know it first as last. I’ll come when I’m ready, or I’ll never come at all!’
“And with that she took herself off, an’ after a minute Lup up an’ followed her. He didn’t come home while morning—I’ve an idea he spent the night on the sea-wall—and after that it was Canada. Ay, an’ Canada it’ll be, sir, and no two words about it!”
He stopped, exhausted, and Lancaster laughed.