“Well, I can spare ten minutes. David, see that these idle rogues get forrard wi’ their work,” he added, nodding toward his farm-men as he moved off.
Gaunt dismounted and slipped the bridle through his arm, and the two were half across the croft before Billy found speech.
“Is yond turkey-cock o’ yours abroad yet, Farmer, as a body’s body might say?” he called.
“Ay,” answered Hirst, without turning his head.
“Well, pen the devil up, says Fool Billy. Pen ’un up, Farmer!”
When he had watched Hirst and Reuben Gaunt go slowly through the gate at the far end of the croft and up into the pastures, the natural relapsed into his former attitude. “Get forrard, ye three wise folk!” he said, with inscrutable gravity of mien. “We’ll have th’ old devil wired and boarded in, come to-morrow’s morn.”
Gaunt found no easy task before him, now that he was alone with Hirst in the upper field. The yeoman, hearty and courteous to gentle and simple alike, could rarely bring himself to be civil toward Reuben. As he put it to himself, John Hirst had a “feeling as if a rat was crawling over his chest when Gaunt of Marshlands was about.” The younger man’s courage was chilled, moreover, by the open insult Hirst had given him in face of the farm-men.
“Well?” said the farmer, after a long silence.
Reuben Gaunt took the fence, as he had taken many another on hunting-days. “Cilla has said she’ll marry me, and I rode down to tell you.”
Hirst gasped, then rubbed his eyes, as if he woke from an evil dream and strove to shake it off.