"Then it did but tickle ye, I doubt," said Gillman slyly, "to blushing-point."
"Master, I AM not blushing!" protested Joscelyn. "The sun's on my face and in my eyes, don't you see?"
"I would he were on my daughter's, then," said Gillman. "Does Gillian still sit in her own shadow?"
"Yes, master," answered Jane, "but I think she will be in the light very shortly."
"If she be not," groaned Gillman, "it's a shadow she'll find instead of a father when she comes back to the farmstead; for who can sow wild oats at my time o' life, and not show it at last in his frame? Yet I was a stout man once."
"Take heart, master," urged Joyce eyeing his waistcoat. But he shook his head.
"Don't be deceived, maid. Drink makes neither flesh nor gristle; only inflation. Gillian!" he shouted, "when will ye make the best of a bad job and a solid man of your dad again?"
But the donkey braying in its paddock got as much answer as he.
"Well, it's lean days for all, maids," said Gillman, and doled out the loaves from his basket, "and you must suffer even as I. Yet another day may see us grow fat." And he turned his basket upside down on his head and moved away.
"Excuse me, master," said Jane, "but is Nellie, my little Dexter Kerry, doing nicely?"