Clancy pulled himself together and spoke lightly. "I s'pose ye're right, lads, an' it was yer own feed I was thinking of. If ye're satisfied, I must be. An' I was wrong, o' course, to treat our visitors so rough, an' try force any kind o' a bargain on them. I ax their pardon."
Taking the pardon for granted, he went back to his seat.
Brannigan, who had never lost grip of himself for a moment, sat down again with a good-natured grin. A murmur of satisfaction went round the table, and knives once more clattered on tin plates.
Long Jackson, by the door, hesitated and glared piercingly at the boss, who refrained from noticing.
At length he set down his weapon and came back to the table. In a minute or two his appetite returned, and he could resume his meal.
Out in the barn, in the smell of hay and horses, Mary lay tranquilly waving her ears, staring at her unfamiliar company, and chewing her comfortable cud, untroubled with any intuitions of the fate which had twice within the last few hours so narrowly passed her by.
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