Perris's face grew solemn, and he looked at the ceiling. Then he looked at the steward with a mysterious air, and bent to him across the ledgers and the papers.
"Pigs, sir!" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Pigs is what pays, sir! I'm a-goin' to do summat big in pigs."
"Oh, I see!" said the steward. "Pigs, eh? All right. You're stopping to the dinner, of course."
Perris intimated that such was his intention, and made his bow. He went out of the room chuckling to himself as he jingled the money which the clerk had handed him. And as he lingered for a moment in the hall, previous to joining his fellow small farmers and the carpenter and blacksmith in the room set apart for them, Mark Taffendale rode up to the door of the Dancing Bear on his smart cob, and, dismounting, threw the bridle to a lad who stood near.
Taffendale was both an owner of land and a tenant of land. The lime quarry, and much of the land which he farmed, was his own freehold property, and so was his farmstead. But on the Martinsthorpe side of the Limepits he rented some two hundred acres of the estate whose steward was now collecting the rents, and he made a point of always attending the audit, to pay his rent in person, and to share the rent dinner with his neighbours of the village. He had seen Perris at these dinners, but he had never spoken to him, for Rhoda had been right when she said the big farmers regarded the little ones as so much dirt beneath their feet; and now, as he came into the Dancing Bear, he merely gave the tenant of the Cherry-trees a careless, cold nod. But Perris was in his path, and Taffendale had to stop, for the man pulled off his hat and made a servile obeisance.
"Good-mornin', Mestur Taffendale," said Perris, He favoured Taffendale with one of his weak smiles, and looked around him with his air of mystery. "I—I were hopin' to speak to you, sir. I'm deeply obliged to you, Mestur Taffendale, for your kindness, and—"
Taffendale made to brush past him.
"All right, all right!" he said brusquely. "No need to say anything, Perris: that's enough. Look to your farm—you can do well on it if you are careful."
He passed on and entered the steward's room, and closed the door behind him, and so shut out Perris, who was vainly trying to say more. And Perris, again grinning, and again jingling the unexpected money, made for the little parlour wherein his own set awaited him. There was still a full hour before the serving of dinner, and naught to do but to make merry in it: Perris drew silver out of his pocket as he joined the company. He bestowed one of his fatuous grins on the other small farmers.
"I think we mun as well spend a bit o' that rebate money—what?" he said. "Ecod, I weren't expectin' owt o' that sort this mornin'! Now what's it to be, gentlemen, while t' big nobs is payin' up and t' dinner's gettin' ready, like? Speyk the word!"
Four hours later Perris shambled away up the hill from the Dancing Bear. He, the blacksmith, the carpenter and the little farmers had kept conviviality up when all else were gone. The steward and his clerk, Taffendale and the better-to-do men, had left as soon as the dinner was over; the men who could least afford to spend money had lingered to waste what they had. And Perris, once clear of the inn and the crossroads, became conscious of his misbehaviour, and a great fear fell on him.
"I misdoubt I've ta'en overmuch o' yon sherry wine," he muttered to himself. "I'm over and above market-merry. I moan't face t' missis like this here—she'll gi' me bell-tinker if I do! I mun lie down a bit somewhere, and sleep t' drink off—that's what I mun contrive."
He remembered a quiet spot behind a wheatstack in a corner of one of his own fields, and with a view to reaching it unobserved he climbed the hedge a little further on and made towards it. But in climbing the hedge he slipped and broke off the handle of the highly prized umbrella, and further visions of Rhoda's wrath arose before him. Moaning and whimpering over his bad luck, he made his way beneath the shelter of the hawthorns to the quietude of the wheat-stack; and there, clutching the fragments of the umbrella to him, he cried himself into unconsciousness.
Chapter VI
When Perris lay down to sleep behind the wheat-stack he was unaware that Pippany Webster was watching him from the vantage-point of a convenient hole in the adjacent hedge. The man-of-all-work had been spending a leisurely day in hoeing turnips, and, secure in the knowledge that his master was at the Dancing Bear, and likely to remain there, he had varied his peregrinations up and down the rows of fresh green plants by long rests in the welcome shade of the hawthorns. It was during one of these vacations that he saw Perris lurching across the next field. Pippany saw at once that the farmer was drunk, and, drawing back into the hedgerow, he followed his crab-like movements with interest. He watched Perris gain the wheatstack and disappear behind it; seeing that he made no reappearance, Pippany decided to approach with caution, and to ascertain for himself what had happened. The wheatstack stood in the angle of the field; it was an easy matter to creep along the hedge and to see what was going on in the angle which Perris had sought as a refuge from Rhoda. In a few moments the man was gazing at the master, who by that time was oblivious of everything.
"Drucken!" Pippany muttered, as he peered through the undergrowth of the hedge. "Reight drucken! He's come theer to sleep t' drink off. I wonder what our missis 'ud say if shoo set ees on him?—shoo'd be for takin' t' skin offen his back. It 'ud be a rare fine thing if I went and telled her 'at he wor liggin' theer!—I could like to see her beltin' him."
Pippany was so taken with the notion of beholding Rhoda thrash her drunken husband that he was minded to set off in the direction of the farmstead there and then, and to fetch her to the scene of Perris's slumbers. But just as he was about to turn away his small eyes caught sight of a shining object which lay on the ground at the unconscious man's side. The shaft of sunlight which streamed down between the wheatstack and the hedgerow fell full upon it, and Pippany noticed that it was glinting upon a golden sovereign.
Visions of great possibilities stole across Pippany's mental field at the sight of that piece of gold. He rose from his hands and knees, trembling in every limb, and looked fearfully and cautiously about him. There was not a soul in sight anywhere; the ground on which the wheatstack stood lay in something of a dip in the land, and it was impossible to see it from the farmstead. Close by there was a convenient gap in the hedge; Pippany presently crept through it, and cautiously approached the recumbent figure. A slight inspection convinced him that Perris was not to be aroused by anything short of violence, and he picked up the sovereign and bestowed it in his own pocket. Then it struck him that where the sovereign had been other sovereigns might be, and he presently summoned up courage to insert his hand into his master's pocket and to draw forth what he found there. And, stealing quietly round to the other side of the wheatstack, Pippany counted his gains. There were three sovereigns and a half sovereign, and some small silver; the silver Pippany put in his breeches, the gold he placed in his metal tobacco-box, snugly stuffed in amongst the tobacco.
"I mud just as weel hev' it as let him hev' it," he said to himself. "He's niver paid me fair, and this here 'll do to mak' up. Gow, but Mistress Perris, shoo would be mad an' all if shoo knew I'd takken his brass away thro' him!"
This reflection so cheered Pippany that he crept back through the gap in the hedge, picked up his hoe, and worked steadily at the turnips until it was time to discontinue his labours for the day. At a quarter to six he shouldered his hoe and made off to the farmstead. His supper was due to be served at a quarter past six, but he was indifferent as to whether it was ready or not; he was already promising himself a supper of his own, later on, when he returned to his cottage in the village.
Rhoda was in a temper when Pippany walked into the house-place. She had expected Perris to return home by four o'clock at the latest, he would even then have had quite two hours for his conviviality and recreation. When five o'clock arrived and there were no signs of him she began to exhibit symptoms of anger, and her temper was not improved by the remarks of Tibby Graddige, who had come to assist at the weekly wash, and was full of suggestions as to what happened when a parcel of men got talking and drinking after the rent dinner. And just