“I’m thinkin’ only of your own interests, you see, lad, the same as if you was my son.”
Tim patted Mackenzie’s shoulder again, doubtless warm to the bottom of his sheep-blind heart over the prospect of a hand to serve him three years who would go break-neck and hell-for-leather, not counting consequences in his blind and simple way, or weather or hardships of any kind. For there was Mary, and there were five thousand sheep. As for Joan, she was out of Tim’s reckoning any longer. He had a new Jacob on the line, and he was going to play him for all he was worth.
“All right; I’ve got a lot to learn yet,” Mackenzie agreed.
“You have, you have that,” said Tim with fatherly tenderness, “and you’ll learn it like a book. I always said from the day you come you had in you the makin’ of a sheepman. Some are quick and some are slow, but the longer it takes to learn the harder it sticks. It’s been that way wi’ me.”
“That’s the rule of the world, they say.”
“It is; it is so. And you can put up a good fight, even though you may not always hold your own; you’ll be the lad to wade through it wi’ your head up and the mornin’ light on your face. Sure you will, boy. I’ll be tellin’ Mary.”
“I’d wait a while,” Mackenzie said, gently, as a man who was very soft in his heart, indeed. “I’d rather we’d grow into it, you know, easy, by gentle stages.”
“Right you are, lad, right you are. Leave young hearts to find their own way––they can’t miss it if there’s nobody between them. I’ll say no word to Mary 251 at all, but you have leave to go and see her as often as you like, lad, and the sooner you begin the better, to catch her while she’s young. How’s your hand?”
“Well enough.”