"So he'll not come to the sheep-washing?" broke in Red Ratcliffe, with a glance at his fellows.
"I've telled ye so," said Hiram, "an' telling ye twice willun't better a straight tale."
"I'm thinking Hiram hes a soft spot i' his heart for young Maister; I've niver knawn him tell so thick a lee afore," muttered shepherd Jose, as he went forward with his work.
Red Ratcliffe, looking down the streamway and wondering whether it were worth while to insist on his claim to the pool, laughed suddenly and jerked his bridle-hand in the direction of a horseman who had turned the bend of the track below and jumped the stream.
"Shameless Wayne will come to the washing after all," he said, and waited, stiff and quiet in the saddle, till Wayne of Marsh should cross the half-mile that intervened.
"I war mista'en, seemingly. Th' Maister mun hev crossed straight fro' th' grass-cutting," said Hiram, putting a bold face on it to hide a sinking heart.
The old man turned his back on the Ratcliffes, and his face to the upcoming horseman, whose head was thrust low upon his shoulders as if some gloomy trend of thought were dulling him to all sights and sounds of this fair June day.
"I framed weel, an' I could do no more," he said to himself; "but sakes, why couldn't he hev bided a while longer? Th' Ratcliffes 'ud hev been off to th' Low Meadow i' a twinkling, if I knaw owt.—What's to be done, like? He's a wick un to fight, is th' Maister, but there's seven o' these clever Dicks fro' Wildwater, an' that's longish odds."
Hiram stood for awhile, puzzled and ill-at-ease, watching his master draw slowly nearer to the pools; and then his face brightened on the sudden as he shuffled across to where two shepherd lads were talking affrightedly together.
"Set your dogs on a two-three sheep, an' drive 'em downhill, an' reckon to follow 'em," he whispered. "Then ye'll meet Maister—an' a word i' his lug may save him fro' a deal. An' waste no time, for there's none to be lessen."