Pickering, annoyed at the unlooked-for presence of a woman, said sternly:
“Talk to your husband, not to me, ma’am. He wronged me by getting three times the value for a useless beast, and if you can convince him that he took an unfair advantage, I’m willing, even now——”
But Mrs. Bolland had caught the flicker of amazement in Martin’s eye and was not to be mollified.
“Who are you, I’d like to know?” she shrilled, “coomin’ te one’s house an’ scandalizin’ us? A nice thing, to be sure, for a man like you to call John Bolland a wrongdoer. The cow won’t calve, won’t she? ’Tis a dispensation on you, George Pickerin’. You’re payin’ for yer own misdeeds. There’s plenty i’ Elmsdale wheä ken your char-ak-ter, let me tell you that. What’s become o’ Betsy Thwaites?”
But Pickering had resigned the contest. He was striding toward the “Black Lion,” where a dogcart awaited him, and he laughed to himself as the flood of vituperation swelled from the door of the farm.
“Gad!” he muttered, “how these women must cackle in the market! One old cow is hardly worth so much fuss!”
Still smiling at the storm he had raised, he gathered the reins, gave Fred, the ostler, a sixpence, and would have driven off had he not seen a pretty serving-maid gazing out through an upper window. Her face looked familiar.
“Hello!” he cried. “You and I know each other, don’t we?”
“No, we doan’t; an’ we’re not likely to,” was the pert reply.