“Be Jarge Crumpler here?” echoed an officious voice.
And then the answer came, first from one side and then the other, “I han’t seen nothin’ o’ Jarge this marnin’;” and “He bain’t here, sir—I d’ ’low he bain’t.”
The farmer tightened his reins with an ominous look.
“He’s been at his tricks again, I suppose?”
While he was yet speaking a figure turned in at the gate and made its way quickly up to the “maister”; the figure of a short, thick-set woman in a print dress and sunbonnet. Drawing near, she uplifted a round, sunburnt face, and laid her hand tremulously upon the farmer’s rein.
“Please ye, sir, I’m sorry to say my ’usband bain’t so very well this marnin’.”
“Oh, isn’t he?” retorted Ellery, with a short, angry laugh. “He’s been taking something that hasn’t agreed with him, I suppose; it’s happened once or twice before.”
“He’ve had a fall,” the little woman nervously stammered.
“A fall, yes—it’s not the first time either. Cut his head open as usual, I suppose?”
The bystanders looked at each other, and a smothered “Haw, haw!” sounded here and there.