“He do send it out to ’em reg’lar,” said Martin Fry. “Ees, my brother James, what works for Farmer Inkpen, do say that they do be carr’in’ the jugs back’ards and forrards fro’ the house to the field so reg’lar as if ’twas but the family theirselves what was working. There, it do make I dry wi’ naught but thinkin’ on it.”
Jess Domeny looked up from the long roller of hay which he had just raked together, and surveyed his comrade vengefully.
“An’ it mid well make ye feel dry, Martin!” he cried emphatically. “It mid well make ye feel dry. Sich a day as this be, an’ us a-workin’ so many hours at a stretch.”
Jim Stuckey, perched aloft on the seat of the hay-rake, drew the back of his hand across his lips, and remarked that it was the drouthiest weather he’d a-knowed since he was a lad, an’ he’d see’d a good few hot summers too.
“I wish,” resumed Martin, voicing the sentiments of the party, “our measter was so thoughtful for his fellow-creeturs as Farmer Inkpen do be, accordin’ to my brother James, but I truly believe a man’s tongue mid drop out of’s head wi’ drith afore he’d take a bit o’ notice.”
“Measter b’ain’t mich of a drinker hisself,” hazarded a lover of fair play, “or else I d’ ’low he’d have a bit more feelin’ for sich as we together.”
“He did ought to ha’ feelin’,” cried Jess, vehemently. “A man same as Measter what be makin’ sich a sight o’ money, takin’ prizes for carn an’ layin’ by the dibs so fast he can scarce count ’em, did ought to have a bit o’ mercy on them what do have to earn their bread by the sweat o’ their brow.”
“Measter do sweat too,” put in an impartial bystander mildly. “He do sweat like anything, Jess. I’ve a-see’d the big draps a-standin’ on’s face.”
“What I d’ say is,” continued Jess, after pausing to glare at the last speaker, “a man i’ Measter’s place what be set up over his feller-men by the hand o’ Providence, did ought to act providential-like. When the weather be that mortial hot a man gets thirsty sittin’ in a chair, them what’s set over him did ought to see as he had a drap or two to m’isten his tongue wi’.”
There was a murmur of approval, and then the men prepared to continue their labours. But Jess stayed them by an admonitory gesture.