"It's warm," ventured Hiram, picking up a stone from the grass and throwing it aside.
"Warm? I should reckon it is. Tha'd say so if tha'd carried this pail a-top o' thy head for a mile an' better.—But, Lord, we munnot complain, for 'tis a day i' five-score, this, an' warm as midsummer."
"Thee bide a bittock, as I telled young Maister this morn. 'Spring's come again, Hiram,' says he to me. 'Mebbe,' says I, 'but when a man's lived to my years he learns to believe owt o' th' weather—save gooid sense.' That's what I said, for sure."
"Tha'rt not so thrang as or'nary, seemingly?" said Martha, after a pause.
Hiram glanced at her, as if suspecting mockery. "Nay, I'm allus thrang," he answered, shaking his head in mournful fashion. "I've heard folk say I do nowt just because they've seen me hands-i'-pocket time an' time; but when ye're maister-hand at a farm, there's head-work to be done as weel as body-work."
"To be sure—an' 'tis fearful hard, is head-work."
"Ay, I oft say to shepherd Jose that th' humbler your station i' this life, th' fewer frets ye hev."
"I feel fair pitiful for thee, Hiram," said Martha, glancing softly at him across the pail, "when I see what worries tha hes to put up wi'."
Hiram came a step nearer. "Tha mud weel pity me, lass. 'Tis grand to be sich chaps as Jose—all body, i' a way o' speaking, an' no head-piece worth naming to come 'twixt victuals an' their appetites.—Martha, lass, I've oft wondered how tha came to be born a wench."
"Would'st hev hed me born a lad?"