“That be so, Sam,” added several rough voices.
Wilson, who had pushed through the crowd, laid his hand on Jeffray’s shoulder and looked meaningly in his face.
“Let them alone, sir,” he said, in an undertone; “they won’t understand your fine philosophy.”
“This is mere brutality, Dick.”
“Egad, sir, if you begin reforming the British nation you will be ducked like Wesley in the horse-pond.”
Jeffray, feeling himself humiliated before the grinning and contemptuous faces of the men, turned and walked away with Wilson towards the inn. An outburst of coarse laughter followed him. One fellow put his thumb to his nose and spread his fingers behind Jeffray’s back. Another made a certain indescribable noise that condensed the contempt of these “pastoral swains.”
“Lamentable soft, the Squire, be’nt he, Sam?”
“Poor sort of foreigner, I reckon.”
“Sing’lar young man. Poor, skinny-looking fox as ever I see. Better be mindin’ of his own business. Lookee, Cloddy, it be your shy, man.”
They returned to their cock-baiting with rough laughter, and much lewd jeering and cursing one with another. Jeffray and the painter had neared the Wheat Sheaf where half a score red-faced farmers were gossiping and drinking beer on the benches about the wooden tables. They exchanged winks and grimaces, and pulled off their hats to Jeffray with mock politeness. George Gogg, the innkeeper, came out to meet the master of Rodenham, cloaking his personal and obese contempt for the young Squire under an air of almost offensive servility. As Jeffray passed through the bar with Wilson towards the private parlor, he became aware of a big man in a green coat staring at him from a bench in the chimney-corner. Richard, baffled for the moment, remembered where he had seen the fellow’s face before. It was Dan Grimshaw, of Pevensel. As for a contrast Bess’s face flashed up before him, its lips like a thread of scarlet, its black hair streaming above the fierce blue eyes.