So into the buttery Jean Marie disappeared, and prudent Molly locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Presently he heard the farmer come stamping in in his top-boots, and a series of thuds in the passage, which meant that the men, having duly “washed them” at the pump, were now respectfully divesting themselves of their clogs. He heard old Winny groaning over the fatigues of the day, and Susan giggling with some rustic admirer, and the quick tread of Molly’s feet on the flags as she hastened up and down the table. Then a roar from Farmer Rainford—
“Hurry up, wilt thou, lass? Wheer’s the moog? I’m that dry I could very near drink water. ‘Is the field nigh cut?’ says thou. No, nor half-cut” (and here the farmer rapped out an oath or two); “the lads don’t work near so well as they used to do: nor the wenches neither. There’s storm-weather about. Thou might ha’ made shift to come out a bit before supper—another pair of hands is worth summat, I tell thee.”
Another pair of hands! Jean Marie rubbed his own in the darkness, and drew a long breath. Here was a lever by which he might help his cause.
Presently the scraping back of benches denoted that the meal was at an end, and soon the sound of retreating voices announced that the tired folk had withdrawn to their beds in attic or outhouse. Then Jean Marie heard Molly speaking in a low muffled tone, which somehow conveyed to him the impression that she was bending over her father; and then a bellow from the old man made the prisoner spring backwards from the door.
“A Frenchy in my house! What the—the—”
“Eh, father, just think if it were our Teddy as had got loose from prison over yon, and wanted a helpin’ hand.”
“Our lad’s noan sich a fool as to get put in prison.”
“Nay, but he might; and the Lord might do the same to us as we do to yon poor chap.”
“Don’t tell me, ye silly wench, as the Lord ’ud go for to treat a good honest Englishman same as a fool of a Frenchy.”
“He looks just like an Englishman, father, and he speaks English much the same as we do. He seems as nice as could be, and that handy going about the kitchen.”