The landlord came to the door with the waggoner, when Colonel Piercey had established himself there, and his aspect could not be said to be quite equal to that of his house. Hewitt had a red nose and a watery eye. His appearance did not inspire respect. He was holding the waggoner by the breast of his smock, and holding forth, duly emphasising his discourse by the gesture of the other hand, in which he held a pipe.
“You just ’old by me,” he was saying, “look’ee, Jack; and I’ll ’old by you, I will. The ’ay’s a good crop; nobody can’t say nothing again that. But there’s rain a-coming, and Providence, ’e knows what’ll come of it all in the end. It ain’t what’s grow’d in the fields as is to be trusted to, but what’s safe in the stacks; and there’s a deal o’ difference between one and the other. Look’ee here! you ’old by me, and I’ll ’old by you. And I can’t speak no fairer. I’ve calcilated all round, I ’ave—me and Patty, my girl, as is that good at figures; and if it’s got in safe, all as I’ve got to say is, that this ’ere will be a dashed uncommon yeer.”
“It’s mostly the way,” said the waggoner, “I’ll allow, with them dry Junes. The weather can’t ’old up not for ever.”
“Nor won’t,” said old Hewitt, with assurance; “it stands to reason. Ain’t this a variable climate or ain’t it not? And a drop o’ rain we ’aven’t seen not for three weeks and more. Then we’ll ’ave a wet July. You see yourself when I knocked the glass ’ow it went down. And that,” he added, triumphantly, waving his pipe in the air, “is what settles the price of the ’ay.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you was right, master,” said the waggoner, getting under weigh.
Gerald Piercey sat and watched the big horses straining their great flanks to the work, setting the heavy waggon in motion, with pleasure in the sight which diverted him for a moment from his chief object of interest. Coming straight from India and the fine and slender-limbed creatures which are the patricians of their kind, the great, patient, phlegmatic English cart-horse filled him with admiration. The big feathered hoofs, the immense strain of those gigantic hind-quarters, the steady calm of the rustic, reflected with a greater and more dignified impassiveness in the face of his beast, was very attractive and interesting to him.
“Fine horses, these,” he said, half to Hewitt at the door, half to the waggoner, who grinned with a slow shamefacedness, as if it were himself who was being praised.
“Ay, sir,” said Hewitt, “and well took care of, as ever beasts was. Jack Mason there—though I say it as shouldn’t—is awfull good to his team.”
“And why shouldn’t you say it?” said Colonel Piercey. “It’s clear enough.”
“He’s a relation, that young man is, and it’s a country saying, sir, as you shouldn’t speak up for your own. But I ain’t one as pays much ’eed to that, for, says I, you knows them that belong to you better nor any one else does. There’s my girl Patty, now; there ain’t one like her betwixt Guildford and Portsmouth, and who knows it as well as me?”