“It’s complete!—quite restored, or—well—nearly.”
“Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it,” said the Scotchman. “To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won’t stand so much as that, but heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir, that’s the process, I don’t value it, for it can be but of little use in countries where the weather is more settled than in ours; and I’ll be only too glad if it’s of service to you.”
“But hearken to me,” pleaded Henchard. “My business you know, is in corn and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hay is what I understand best though I now do more in corn than in the other. If you’ll accept the place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and receive a commission in addition to salary.”
“You’re liberal—very liberal, but no, no—I cannet!” the young man still replied, with some distress in his accents.
“So be it!” said Henchard conclusively. “Now—to change the subject—one good turn deserves another; don’t stay to finish that miserable supper. Come to my house, I can find something better for ’ee than cold ham and ale.”
Donald Farfrae was grateful—said he feared he must decline—that he wished to leave early next day.
“Very well,” said Henchard quickly, “please yourself. But I tell you, young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the sample, you have saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I pay you for this knowledge?”
“Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to use it often, and I don’t value it at all. I thought I might just as well let ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye.”
Henchard paused. “I shan’t soon forget this,” he said. “And from a stranger!... I couldn’t believe you were not the man I had engaged! Says I to myself, ‘He knows who I am, and recommends himself by this stroke.’ And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not the man who answered my advertisement, but a stranger!”
“Ay, ay; that’s so,” said the young man.