"It du want rain," said Peter Halsey, looking at a crop of oats through an open gate, "it du want rain—bad."
"Aye!" said the other, "that it du. Muster Shenstone had better 'a read the prayer for rain lasst Sunday, I'm thinkin', than all them long ones as ee did read."
Halsey was silent a moment, his half-smiling eyes glancing from side to side. At last he said slowly,—
"We du be prayin' a lot about ower sins, and Muster Shenstone is allus preachin' about 'em. But it's the sins o' the Garmins I be thinkin' of. If it hadn't a bin for the sins o' the Garmins my Tom wouldn't ha' lost 'is right hand."
"An' ower Jim wouldn't be goin' into them trenches next November as ever is," put in Batts. "It's the sins o' the Garmins as ha' done that, an' nothin' as you or I ha' done, Peter."
Halsey shook his head assentingly.
"Noa—for all that pratin', pacifist chap was sayin' lasst week. I didn't believe a word ee said. 'Yis,' I says, 'if you want this war to stop, I'm o' your mind,' I says, 'but when you tells me as England done it—you'm—'"
The short man burst into a cackling laugh.
"'You'm a liar!' Did you say that, Peter?"
Peter fenced a little.