The Wrestling Match
Joel looked in at Greystones on his way to the Shepherds' Meet. He would rather have passed the house by, for he was in no mood to talk to Mistress Lynn, but he did not like to seem discourteous to one who had been as kind to him as she had been.
"Why, Joel, man," she exclaimed, "thee's grown handsomer than ever. Thee always was a bonny lad, but thee'd better have a care now, or all the lasses will be making sheeps-eyes at thee up hill and down dale."
"You look very well," said Barbara.
He glanced from the old woman to her great-granddaughter, and smiled, throwing off the impatience that he felt with an effort.
"It's you who have grown handsomer, not I, Mistress Lynn," he replied. "You look nearly as young as Barbara. If you put that grand nightcap you're wearing on her head, she'd be the image of you, and you of her."
"Hoots-toots! and me going on a hundred!" She shook her finger at him. "I's too old to have my senses turned with such babblement. I was like Barbara once, but not in your day, my lad. It's to her you should be paying your compliments, not to her great-granny. Your grandfather gave me all I ever wanted."
She made him sit down by the four-poster, with his face to the windows, so that she could see him well.
"I couldn't pay Barbara a greater compliment," he said smoothly, yet with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, for he saw the drift of her mind, "than by likening her to you. You and she are the handsomest, bonniest pair that I've set sight on since I last saw you both."
"Get away with you, Master Joel; you've got far too sly a tongue for simple folk like the lassie and me."