Hastings made a face.
"Right you are, captain. And how's it going to work out?"
"Don't ask me!" laughed Ellesborough—"we've all got to sit tight and hope for the best. All I know is that the people who work with their hands are going to get a bit of their own back from the people who work with their heads—or their cheque-books. And I'm glad of it! But ghosts are a silly nuisance. However, I dare say Miss Leighton will get round the old man."
Hastings looked doubtful.
"I don't know. All the talk about the murder has come up again. They say there's a grandson come home of the man that was suspected sixty years ago—John Dempsey. And some people tell me that this lad had the whole story of the murder from his grandfather—who confessed it—only last year, when the man died."
"Well, if he's dead all right, and has owned up to it, why on earth does the ghost make a fuss?"
Hastings shook his head.
"People get talking," he said gloomily. "And when they get talking, they'll believe anything—and see anything. It'll be the girls next."
Ellesborough tried to cheer him, but without much success. The "poor spirit" of the bailiff was a perpetual astonishment to the American, in the prime of his own life and vigour. Existence for Hastings was always either drab or a black business. If the weather was warm, "a bit of cold would ha' been better": if a man recovered from an illness, he'd still got the "bother o' dyin' before him." He was certain we should lose the war, and the rush of the September victories did not affect him. And if we didn't lose it, no matter—prices and wages would still be enough to ruin us. Rachel grew impatient under the constant drench of pessimism. Janet remembered that the man was a delicate man, nearing the sixties, with, as she suspected, but small provision laid up for old age; with an ailing wife; and bearing the marks in body and spirit of years of overwork. She never missed an opportunity of doing him a kindness; and the consequence was that Hastings, always faithful, even to his worst employers, was passionately faithful to his new mistresses, defending them and fighting for their interests, as they were sometimes hardly inclined to fight for themselves.
After showing Ellesborough the way to the "clamps," Hastings left him. In succession to the long days of rain there had been a sudden clearing in the skies. The day had been fine, and now, towards sunset, there was a grand massing of rosy cloud along the edge of the down, and windy lights over the valley. Rachel, busy with the covering of the potato "clamps," laid down the bundle of bracken she had been handing to Peter Betts, and came quickly to meet her visitor. Her working dress was splashed with mire from neck to foot, and coils of brown hair had escaped from her waterproof cap, and hung about her brilliant cheeks. She looked happy, but tired.