Next he put a finger on Amos's pulse and after a minute closed his watch with a snap, but without comment.
"You feel better now, Opie?" he questioned presently in a tone that, to the old man at least, was significant.
"What gave you this turn? Is there anything on your mind? You might as well tell now, as you will have to sooner or later, and Miss Maxwell must go home presently. You'll have to put up with me for the rest of the night and a man isn't as cheerful a companion as a woman—is he, Amos?"
"No, yer right there, Mr. Blake, and it's the idee o' loneliness that's upsettin' me! Come down ter facts, Mr. Blake, it's the offers I've had fer the farm—yourn and hern—and my wishin' ter favour both and yet not give it up myself, and the whole's too much fer me!"
"Hers! Has Miss Maxwell made a bid for the farm? What do you want it for?" he said, turning quickly to Maria, who coloured and then replied quietly—"To live in! which is exactly what you said when I asked you a similar question a couple of months ago!"
"The p'int is," continued Amos, quickly growing more wide awake, and addressing the ceiling as a neutral and impartial listener, "that Mr. Blake has offered me five hundred more than Maria Maxwell, and though I want ter favour her (in buyin', property goes to the highest bidder; it's only contract work that's fetched by the lowest, and I never did work by contract—it's too darned frettin'), I can't throw away good money, and neither of 'em yet knows that whichsomever of 'em buys it has got ter give me a life right ter live in the summer kitchen and fetch my drinkin' water from the well in the porch! A lone widder man's a sight helplesser 'n a widder, but yet he don't get no sympathy!"
The Man from Everywhere began to laugh, and catching Maria's eye she joined him heartily. "How do you mean to manage?" he asked in a way that barred all thought of intrusion.
"I'm going to have a flower farm and take in two invalids—no, not cranks or lunatics, but merely tired people," she added, a little catch coming in her voice.
"Then you had better begin with me, for I'm precious tired of taking care of myself, and here is Amos also applying, so I do not see but what your establishment is already complete!"
Then, as he saw by her face that the subject was not one for jest, he said, in his hearty way that Mary Penrose likes, "Why not let me buy the place, as mine was the first offer, put it in order, and then lease it to you for three years, with the privilege of buying if you find that your scheme succeeds? If the house is too small to allow two lone men a room each, I can add a lean-to to match Opie's summer kitchen, for you know sometimes a woman finds it comfortable to have a man in the house!"