"And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!" added Landon, with a quick glance, doffing his cap. "Mr. Clifford mustn't expect to have it all his own way!"
"What the devil are you talking about?" demanded Robin, turning upon him with a sudden fierceness.
Innocent gave him an appealing look.
"Don't!—Oh, don't quarrel!" she whispered,—and with a parting nod to the whole party of workers she hurried away.
With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men. Then Robin, turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders. He was a person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner of the farm when his uncle was dead. Landon went close up to him.
"Mr. Clifford," he said, somewhat thickly, "you heard what I said just now? You mustn't expect to have it all your own way! There's other men after the girl as well as you!"
Clifford glanced him up and down.
"Yourself, I suppose?" he retorted.
"And why not?" sneered Landon.
"Only because there are two sides to every question," said Clifford, carelessly, with a laugh. "And no decision can be arrived at till both are heard!"
He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily, and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song:
"Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustily raking over the hay,
He was well aware of a bonny lass,
As she came wandering over the way.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!
"Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said,
Among the leaves that be so greene,
If I were a king and wore a crown,
Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!"
Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.
"Those laugh best who laugh last!" he muttered, "And a whistling throstle has had its neck wrung before now!"
Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse. Passing through the hall, which,—unaltered since the days of its original building,—was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm. She found that personage rolling out pastry and talking volubly as she rolled:
"Ah! YOU'LL never come to much good, Jenny Spinner," she cried. "What with a muck of dirty dishes in one corner and a muddle of ragged clouts in another, you're the very model of a wife for a farm hand! Can't sew a gown for yerself neither, but bound to send it into town to be made for ye, and couldn't put a button on a pair of breeches for fear of 'urtin' yer delicate fingers! Well! God 'elp ye when the man comes as ye're lookin' for! He'll be a fool anyhow, for all men are that,—but he'll be twice a fool if he takes you for a life-satchel on his shoulders!"
Jenny Spinner endured this tirade patiently, and went on with the washing-up in which she was engaged, only turning her head to look at Innocent as she appeared suddenly in the kitchen doorway, with her hair slightly dishevelled and the wreath of wild roses crowning her brows.
"Priscilla, where's Dad?" she asked.
"Lord save us, lovey! You gave me a real scare coming in like that with them roses on yer head like a pixie out of the woods! The master? He's just where the doctors left 'im, sittin' in his easy-chair and looking out o' window."
"Was it—was it all right, do you think?" asked the girl, hesitatingly.
"Now, lovey, don't ask me about doctors, 'cos I don't know nothin' and wants to know nothin', for they be close-tongued folk who never sez what they thinks lest they get their blessed selves into hot water. And whether it's all right or all wrong, I couldn't tell ye, for the two o' them went out together, and Mr. Slowton sez 'Good-arternoon, Miss Friday!' quite perlite like, and the other gentleman he lifts 'is 'at quite civil, so I should say 'twas all wrong. For if you mark me, lovey, men's allus extra perlite when they thinks there's goin' to be trouble, hopin' they'll get somethin' for theirselves out of it."
Innocent hardly waited to hear her last words.
"I'm going to Dad," she said, quickly, and disappeared.
Priscilla Friday stopped for a minute in the rolling-cut of her pastry. Some great stress of thought appeared to be working behind her wrinkled brow, for she shook her head, pursed her lips and rolled up her eyes a great many times. Then she gave a short sigh and went on with her work.
The farmhouse was a rambling old place, full of quaint corners, arches and odd little steps up and down leading to cupboards, mysterious recesses and devious winding ways which turned into dark narrow passages, branching right and left through the whole breadth of the house. It was along one of these that Innocent ran swiftly on leaving the kitchen, till she reached a closed door, where pausing, she listened a moment-then, hearing no sound, opened it and went softly in. The room she entered was filled with soft shadows of the gradually falling dusk, yet partially lit by a golden flame of the after-glow which shone through the open latticed window from the western sky. Close to the waning light sat the master of the farm, still clad in his smock frock, with his straw hat on the table beside him and his stick leaning against the arm of his chair. He was very quiet,—so quiet, that a late beam of the sun, touching the rough silver white of his hair, seemed almost obtrusive, as suggesting an interruption to the moveless peace of his attitude. Innocent stopped short, with a tremor of nervous fear.
"Dad!" she said, softly.
He turned towards her.
"Ay, lass! What is it?"
She did not answer, but came up and knelt down beside him, taking one of his brown wrinkled hands in her own and caressing it. The silence between them was unbroken for quite two or three minutes; then he said:
"Last load in all safe?"
"Yes, Dad!"
"Not a drop of rain to wet it, and no hard words to toughen it, eh?"
"No, Dad."
She gave the answer a little hesitatingly. She was thinking of Ned Landon. He caught the slight falter in her voice and looked at her suspiciously.
"Been quarrelling with Robin?"
"Dear Dad, no! We're the best of friends."
He loosened his hand from her clasp and patted her head with it.
"That's right! That's as it should be! Be friends with Robin, child! Be friends!—be lovers!"
She was silent. The after-glow warmed the tints of her hair to russet-gold and turned to a deeper pink the petals of the roses in the wreath she wore. He touched the blossoms and spoke with great gentleness.
"Did Robin crown thee?"
She looked up, smiling.
"No, it's Larry's wreath."
"Larry! Ay, poor Larry! A good lad—but he can eat for two and only work for one. 'Tis the way of men nowadays!"
Another pause ensued, and the western gold of the sky began to fade into misty grey.
"Dad," said the girl then, in a low tone—"Do tell me—what did the
London doctor say?"
He lifted his head quickly, and his old eyes for a moment flashed as though suddenly illumined by a flame from within.
"Say! What should he say, lass, but that I am old and must expect to die? It's natural enough—only I haven't thought about it. It's just that—I haven't thought about it!"
"Why