“That we have,” said Gervase heartily.
All the same he felt a kind of shame for having debauched himself so freely upon another’s property. Yet it would be idle to deny that a sense of well-being was uppermost in his mind at that moment. When all was said, this feeling outweighed any that he might have had of moral turpitude.
“Well, then, having had your fill,” said the farmer, speaking as one who chooses his words, “you will not object perhaps to make payment?”
“That I cannot do, I am sorry to say,” said Gervase.
“It is just as I thought,” growled the farmer.
“I ask your pardon,” said Gervase, “for taking your milk, but we have no money to pay for any food and we are starving.”
The face of the farmer was very ugly now. “Starving, are ye? Well, my lad, ye shall both come with me to the constable.”
“I am sorry I cannot oblige you in that,” said Gervase. “I own I have done you a wrong, but not such a wrong as to allow the law to mend it.”
“Well, my lad, you shall not go without payment of some kind,” said the farmer, “and you can lay to that. Either step wi’ me to the constable, or if you’d rather have it that way, come out into the yard and have the properest thrashing you’ve had in all your born days.”
“Well, perhaps that is not unfair—if you can give it me.” Gervase spoke with the modest readiness of a man of mettle.