Not a word of thanks; but perhaps—she generously thought—his English did not go so far.
"It is good dry weather for ploughing, is it not?" she remarked at a venture.
There was no reply.
"That very old man," she asked, "who is he—is he your father?"
"Yes."
"It seems a pity he should be working at his age," she went on, wishing to show sympathy. "He ought to be sitting at the cottage door, smoking his pipe."
"Every one will have to work," said the elderly crofter, in a morose sort of way; and then he looked at his horses.
"Oh well," said Mary, blithely, "I hope to be able to make it a little easier for you all. This land, now, how much do you pay for it? What is your rent?"
"It—thirty shillings an acre."
"Thirty shillings an acre? That is too much," said she, without a moment's hesitation. "Surely thirty shillings an acre is too much for indifferent land like that!"