Fred nodded. He had heard all this before.
"He didn't speak so well as Mr. Rossitur," he remarked meditatively.
The great horses strained and jolted up the hill, shouldering through the mist from the low lying road. Up above, the air was clear and tender. Knots of women and children stood about talking volubly.
Mike laughed scornfully. "Rossitur, bedad? Now then, Fred, don't you go thinking that red headed lad was any better than the rest o' them. The gift o' the blarney he may have had, 'Gentlemen,' he says, 'allow me to introduce you to an agricultural labourer without a grievance.' By Holy Mary, if ever I catch him alone there'll be work for Constable Burton if he will stick his nose into the affairs o' we. The thrashing I gave that blathering idiot, Eli Waite, will be like tickling a girl with a feather beside it."
Fred was used to Mike's truculent threats. Irishmen were made like that, and there was an end of it.
"There'll be just one bit of advice, I'll be giving you, me boy," continued Mike. "And one day you'll thank me. You've got the best mistress in the world. You know her and she knows you. Never listen to them who know nothing but the sound of their own tongues."
They reached the brow of the hill. Mrs. Robson stood on a bank by the roadside and waved her hand as Dolly and Polly rattled by. She smiled at them too, but the smile faded when they had passed, and she stood gazing dreamily across the mist veiled valley.
Up on the hill Sir Charles Seton was judging the waggons. Soon she would have to pass along the line of horses and holiday makers bestowing praise and encouragement upon the competitors and wishing good luck to the children about to ride away for one glorious day of adventure by the sea.
It was not quite time yet, and she might have a little respite. She walked slowly away from them down the hill. It was just as well not to stay too long there in the crowd. Coast was there, and she didn't want to see him. They had not met since the whist drive and she felt sure that their next encounter would be unpleasant. Lately she had shrunk from all contact with unpleasantness.
Little bursts of laughter and shouting floated down the road. The mothers were being hoisted into the waggons, with shrill screamings and personal jokes. The children clutched string bags and hoarded pennies in hot excited fingers.