Mrs. Granton chipped in here. She was hand and glove with Mrs. Bonstone in trying to reform her old friend Carty.
“Perhaps some of your men have been drinking,” she said airily, “and let some of the nasty stuff fall on the barn floor, and the hens ate the hayseed.”
This was not quite correct, but it served her purpose.
“Jerusalem!” said poor Master Carty.
Gringo gave me a push. We were both lying on the floor in a big patch of sunlight, apparently observing nothing, yet taking note of all that went on.
Mrs. Bonstone worked herself, or seemed to work herself into a sudden passion. “I shall ask Norman to discharge both those men, if they are guilty. I shall not have drunkards about the place. They might set the barn on fire.”
Now this touched Master Carty in a tender spot. He was mischievous and self-indulgent, but he was no coward.
“Let me see that neck,” he said miserably.
His sister handed him the bit of broken bottle, and both women surveyed him narrowly from under their eyelids.
Gringo and I were close to his place at the table, and we heard him mutter, “Well, I’ve got it in the neck this time—like the chickens.”