“This morning,” she continued, “when Thomas threw open the barn doors, Sir Walter, who had just got the hens roused, drove them in here to get some nice dry hayseed. They said it would have been better for them to get out early, and pick up the fat worms that had come up on the soil loosened by the rain. However, Sir Walter didn’t know that. I think he thought the wet ground would be bad for the chickens’ feet. Be that as it may, the hens obeyed him, came in here, and he calmly watched them while they crowded about the spilled oats. He has a good vein of Scotch thrift, and he thought it was a good thing to save the oats.
“However, they were affected immediately. You know any kind of a bird has a short digestive tract. When they began to stagger, he withdrew to that spot, and he will not allow any of us to explain the affair to him.”
“Well, some one’s got to put him wise about it,” said Gringo decidedly, “and right away. I believe I’ll do it,” and he set out in his sturdy fashion to have a talk with Sir Walter. For a long time, they stood with their heads close together, then Sir Walter, with a furious face, bolted toward the house.
He had never liked Master Carty very much, for the young man used to tease him unmercifully, and no dog likes persecution any more than a human being does. I knew what he was going to do, and I whispered to Gringo, “If I’m not greatly mistaken, we shall soon see Mrs. Bonstone in the arena.”
Sure enough, as we heard later, Sir Walter burst into the bed-room of the lady he loved so dearly, and served so well in his devotion to her hens, and pulling at her gown, until she hurriedly finished her dressing, induced her to come up to the barn with him.
I shall never forget her face, as she stood staring at us, at the hens, and at Thomas and Joe, who by this time had appeared, and were yelling with glee at the sight of the tipsy hens.
They quieted down when they saw Mrs. Bonstone, and one of them beginning to sniff, followed his nose, till he walked straight to the spot where the bottle still lay in the midst of the few oats left.
“Some one’s been having a spree here,” said Joe.
Mrs. Bonstone swooped down, caught up the broken neck of the bottle, and despite herself, could not help flashing him a suspicious glance.
“I’m a teetotaller, ma’am,” he said shortly. “Joe and me never brings nothin’ from the city.”