When Elspeth returned, she was astonished to find the young Squire seated on a corner of the table, with his crutches one side, and the bailiff's plate the other, preparing dainty mouthfuls with the knife and fork, and skilfully conveying them to her master's mouth.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed she, pausing in the open doorway in amaze.
"It seemed a pity all this gravy should get cold, because you were so busy that you couldn't come," explained Hal. "I think, if I were you, I'd try and make sure of that before I brought the dinner in. I shouldn't like mine cold. And you must excuse my sitting on the table too. If I stand, you see, I want my hands to hold my crutches with; and if I sit down on a chair, I come so low I couldn't reach. I hope I make it salt enough," he added, as he lodged another forkful in the great bird's mouth.
Hal's relations with the bailiff became of a far more confidential nature after this. We often hear it said that a right to give advice is earned by lending help. So Hal found; only he put it in a different way. He felt that he had found his way to Farmer Bluff's affection by performing such a homely office for him; and he treated him accordingly. He often managed to run in upon half-holidays; and he didn't only lecture him about the gout. He soon succeeded in making him talk; so that before long, he knew more of Farmer Bluff's history than most other people did. He found out how the old man liked to talk of sport and dogs; but he also learned how Mrs. Bluff had died quite young of fever, and how one by one, the children whom she left had gone to follow her, so that in six short weeks, he had been left alone.
"That was very sad for you," said he. "I shouldn't wonder if that partly made you have the gout."
"Trouble does act on the system, so the doctors say," said Farmer Bluff, glad of an excuse for what he knew Hal blamed as his own fault.
But that was not exactly Hal's meaning. "It might have been what made you take to beer," observed he.
"Now if you'd looked at it like this," continued Hal after due reflection: "My wife and children are gone on to heaven, where I mean to join them by and by, when I've done work. Just see what a difference it would have made. Some people," added he sagely, "only look at every day as it comes; and if it rains or snows, they think it's never going to stop. Other people look right ahead to the summer holidays—or to the harvest, if they're farmers, of course; and that makes all the difference. They know it will be all right in the long run, don't you see?"
But Hal's tacit reproof had not made Elspeth one whit more attentive to the invalid; indeed, if anything, she had been even more neglectful than before. Her master's time at the farm was getting short, and she had quite made up her mind to seek another place.