"Good even'n t'you, sir," returned the farmer. "I knew the mare though I didn't know you. Rather bluff to-night it be. Will ye step in, Mr. Fev'rel? it's beginnin' to spit—going to be a wildish night, I reckon."
Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men to hold the mare, and ushered the young man in. Once there, Richard's conjurations ceased. There was a deadness about the rooms and passages that told of her absence. The walls he touched—these were the vacant shells of her. He had never been in the house since he knew her, and now what strange sweetness, and what pangs!
Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the table in open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of the fashions for a summer month which had elapsed during his mother's minority. Young Tom was respectfully studying the aspects of the radiant beauties of the polite work. He also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled, and full of wonder.
"What, Tom!" the farmer sang out as soon as he had opened the door; "there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye? What good'll them fashens do to you, I'd like t'know? Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr. Fev'rel's mare. He's al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there never were a better name for a book than that ther' Folly! Talk about attitudes!"
The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned his visitor to do likewise.
"It's a comfort they're most on 'em females," he pursued, sounding a thwack on his knee as he settled himself agreeably in his seat. "It don't matter much what they does, except pinchin' in—waspin' it—at the waist. Give me nature, I say—woman as she's made! eh, young gentleman?"
"You seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing round, and at the ceiling.
"Lonely?" quoth the farmer. "Well, for the matter o' that, we be!—jest now, so't happens; I've got my pipe, and Tom've got his Folly. He's on one side the table, and I'm on t'other. He gaapes, and I gazes. We are a bit lonesome. But there—it's for the best!"
Richard resumed, "I hardly expected to see you to-night, Mr. Blaize."
"Y'acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and I does ye honour for it!" said Farmer Blaize with sudden energy and directness.