But Luke Ross was the only stranger on that occasion, and he sat opposite Sage, whose countenance, though less troubled than when she had overheard her uncle’s words, was lacking in its ordinary composure.
Luke saw this, and attributed it to their conversation, and the interest she took in his affairs. Her aunt saw it, too, and, with the idea of comforting her niece, kept turning the conversation to the Rector and his family, but not to do any good, for out of mere contrariety, and with a twinkle in his eye as he glanced at Luke, the Churchwarden set to and roundly abused the Rector and his sons for their ways.
“Come, Luke,” he said, “you are not making half a meal. I suppose by and by, sir, you will be as fashionable as Master Cyril Mallow, and won’t eat a bit at dinner-time without calling it lunch. Ha, ha, ha!”
“There, do have done, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock. “What have you got to laugh at now?”
“I was thinking of the horse-whipping I gave the young dogs—ay, it’s twelve or fourteen years ago now—that night I caught them in the orchard.”
“There, do let bygones be bygones, Joseph,” cried Mrs Portlock, sharply. “Boys will be boys. I’ll be bound to say you stole apples yourself when you were young.”
“Ay, that I did, and got thrashed for it, too. But I must say that Cyril Mallow don’t bear any malice for what I did.”
A regular duel was fought over that meal between the heads, Sage hardly raising her eyes, but looking more and more troubled as the Mallow attack and defence went on, while Luke Ross was so intent upon his own thoughts that he hardly heard a word.
It was with quite a feeling of relief, then, that Sage heard her uncle say—
“I like parson, not as a parson, but as a man: for the way in which he has tended that poor sick woman ’s an honour to him; but, as for his way of bringing up children, why, if I had carried on my farm in such a fashion I should have been in the Court o’ Bankruptcy years ago. Best thing Mallow could do would be to put the fellow with me to learn farming, and me have the right to do what I liked with him, and five-and-twenty to two? Is it, my dear? I didn’t know it was so late—and make us truly thankful, Amen.”