Sidney cut across the hayfield to where a glistening point glimmered in the sunshine, above a sloping roof set on brown walls.
“‘How curious. How real!’” he said to himself. “‘Underfoot the divine soil—Overhead the sun.’”
He reached the enclosure in which the house stood, and paused at the gate to watch the groups of men discussing their purchases, for the sale was over.
Presently, his interest urging him, he entered, and mingled with the others, having the fanciful idea he would know his father’s old friend by intuition. His eyes softened as he looked at the weather-beaten faces and hard-wrought hands of these men. The memory of the golden grain was dimmed a little, and he saw bands of men bending above their toil beneath stern skies, “storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil.” But that vision was illy entertained in his sanguine, idealistic imagination. It was dismissed to give place once more to the “free farmer” of song and story, and as if to bear witness to this latter picture, a young man detached himself somewhat impatiently from a group of his fellows, and advancing towards where Sidney stood, flung himself across a mettlesome roan which was tugging viciously at its bridle as it stood tied beneath a tree.
The young man’s face was flushed, he was blue-eyed and debonair, his yellow hair tossed back carelessly above his brow; a wide, flapping felt hat rested on the back of his head. His features were large and strongly carved. His mouth, seen red through his tow-coloured moustache, had all the sweetness of a woman’s and much of the deviltry of a rake’s. But his face did not look vicious, only dangerous. His strong, lean hand curbed his horse easily; he turned in his saddle to call to those whom he had just left.
“If anyone wants a last word he knows where to find me,” he cried.
“Yes,” someone said, giving a coarse laugh; “near some pair of apron strings.”
“What did you say?” demanded Lanty Lansing, urging his horse near the group.
“Nothing; O, nothing, Lanty,” said the speaker irritatingly, whilst Lanty’s horse circled the group crab-fashion.