‘That sort of thing bain’t much in my line,’ he replied.
‘I wanted you to come,’ she said.
He only smiled awkwardly, and she wished that she had been more prudent. She told him that Hayes was in hospital and that Harris was laid up with influenza. It would be a convenience to them if he could take over Hayes’s work, which was the care and milking of the cows and the driving of milk-cans morning and night to Llandwlas station. He was astonished at this turn of luck, for he had expected to be dismissed with his harvest earnings in his pocket. For all that, he didn’t mean to take the job on false pretences.
‘So Harris has caught the influenza, has he?’ he said.
‘Yes, he sent up his little girl with a message last night.’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘it wasn’t true. What Harris got was a damned good hammering from me—one that he won’t forget.’
She thrilled to hear him. In her eyes he had become a hero. She knew already that he could be gentle. It gave her a curious, almost physical pleasure to realise him as a fighting man, for every one in the district was aware of Harris’s iron strength.
‘Tell me what happened,’ she said.
‘He only got what he asked for,’ said Abner, ‘with his dirty talk about young Mrs Malpas.’
‘Mary Malpas . . .’ she said quickly. ‘Oh, I’m sick of hearing her name.’