He laughed at that.
"You're the old-fashioned sort, I reckon—content for man to be master," he replied. "Women don't think so much like that now seemingly. They want to run their own lives a bit more and be free; but they'll soon tire of that caper and find security is better than adventures. You'll be the crown of my house and my mother's right hand so long as she's spared; and I'll do the man's work and stand between you and every wind that blows if I can."
"And well I know it," she said.
At Bullstone, the farmhouse stood back from the lane at the summit of a steep hill, and everything was well ordered. The whitewashed front of the house shone in bright sunlight, only broken by the open windows, and a great climbing shrub of buddleia, whose purple tassels fell over the porch. The roof was of Delabole slate, and behind the farm, a rising copse straggled up to frontier ridges of Ugborough Beacon. Round about the farmyard stood buildings, mostly under corrugated iron, that glittered silver bright, and in the porch sat an old man shelling peas.
He saw Jacob and Margery enter the outer gate and came to welcome them.
"Well, Mr. Catt, and how d'you find yourself?" asked the landlord, shaking hands.
"Pretty peart, master; but seventy-five years is a middling load," answered the other, putting his hand to his ear. "And who's the young lady? They tell me——"
"I know what they tell you, Matthew; they tell you; I've gone the way of all flesh and fallen in love."
"So they do then; and this will be Mrs. Huxam's daughter."
He shook hands with Margery.