"You'll come to tea?" said Madge; but Bartley shook his head.
"Two's company, three's none," he said.
"But we're all at home."
"No, no; I've had my luck--mustn't be greedy. One thing I will swear: David Bowden won't make you laugh as often at your tea as I did at your dinner--will he now?"
"We've all got our different qualities."
"I tell you he's a kill-joy," repeated Bartley; but Margaret shook her head.
"Not to me--never to me," she said frankly.
This fearless confession reduced the man to silence. Then, while he considered the position and felt that, if he desired Margaret, the time for serious love-making had come, there approached the sturdy shape of young Bowden himself.
They were now more than half-way up the valley, and David had seen them long ago. He advanced to meet them, took no notice of Bartley, but shook Margaret's hand and spoke while he did so.
"It was ordained that I should drink a dish of tea along with your people this afternoon; but if you've forgot it, I can go again."
"No fay! Of course 'twasn't forgotten. Why ever should you think so, Mr. David?"
"Because Bartley here--however, I'm sorry I spoke, since 'tis as 'tis."
"Not often you say more than be needed in words," remarked Mr. Crocker. But he spoke mechanically. His observation was entirely bestowed upon Margaret's attitude towards Bowden. That she liked him was sufficiently clear. Her face was the brighter for his coming and she began to talk to him of certain interests not familiar to Bartley. Then she remembered herself and turned to the younger man again.
"But what's this to you, Bartley? Nought, I'm sure."
He had remarked that she addressed David by his Christian name, but with the affix of ceremony.
"Anything that interests you interests me, Madge," he answered. "But I'll leave you here and go back-along through the woods."
"Better come on, now you're so near, and have tea with us."
"What does David say?"
"Ban't my business," answered Mr. Bowden.
The men looked at each other straight in the eyes and grasped the situation. Then Bartley shook hands with Margaret and left them.
Bowden made no comment on Mr. Crocker. Indeed he did not speak at all until they had almost reached the homestead of Coombeshead. Then, suddenly, without preliminaries, he dragged a little square-nosed spaniel puppy out of his pocket, where it had been lying fast asleep.
"'Tis weaned and ready to begin learning," he said. "Your brother Bart will soon teach it how to behave. But mind you let him. Don't you try to bring it up. You'll only spoil it. No woman I ever knowed, except Rhoda, could train a dog."
The little thing licked Madge's face while she kissed its nose.
"A dinky dear! Thank you, thank you, Mr. David. 'Twill be a great treasure to me."
He set his teeth and asked for a privilege. He had evidently meant to accompany this gift with a petition.
"And if I may make so bold, I want for you to call me 'David,' instead of 'Mr. David.'"
He looked at her almost sternly as he spoke. His voice was slow, deep and resonant.
"Of course--David."
He nodded and the shadow of a smile passed over his face.
"Thank you kindly," he said.
The pup occupied Margaret's attention and hid the flush upon her cheek. Then they entered together, to find the rest of the Stanbury family sitting very patiently waiting for their tea.
Bartholomew Stanbury and his son, Bartholomew, were men of like instincts and outlook. Coombeshead Farm had but little land and the farmer was very poor; but father and son only grumbled in the privacy of the family circle, and presented a sturdy and indifferent attitude to the world. They were tall, well-made men, flaxen of colour and scanty of hair. Their eyes were blue; their expressions were frank; their intelligence was small and their physical courage great. Save for the difference represented by thirty years of time, father and son could hardly have been more alike; but Bartholomew Stanbury, though little more than fifty was already very bald and round in the shoulders; while "Bart," as the younger man was always called without addition, stood straight, and though his face was hairless, save for a thin moustache, a good sandy crop covered his poll.
Both men rose as Madge and David appeared; both wrinkled their narrow foreheads and both smiled with precisely the same expression. The Stanburys had set their hopes on a possible match with the more prosperous and powerful Bowdens. Bartholomew, indeed, held that his daughter's happiness must be assured if she could win such a husband as David.
"Call your mother, Bart," said Mr. Stanbury, "and we'll have tea. Haven't seen 'e this longful time, David, but I hope all's well to home and the rabbits running heavy."
"Never better," answered young Bowden.
"As for us, can't say it's been all to the good," declared the farmer. "Never knowed a fairer or hotter summer, but in August the maggots got in the sheep's backs something cruel. Bart here was out after 'em all his time--wasn't you, Bart?"
Bart had a habit of patting his chin and nodding when he spoke. He did so now.
"Yes, I was," said Bart. "A terrible brave show of maggots, sure enough."
Mrs. Stanbury appeared, and it might be seen that while her son resembled his father, it was from the mother that Margaret took her dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes and wistful cast of countenance. She was a neat, small woman, and to-day, clad in her plum-coloured Sunday gown with a silver watch-chain and a touch of colour in her black cap, had no little air of distinction about her. Her face was long and rather sad, but it had been beautiful before the mouth fell somewhat. Constance Stanbury was eight years older than her husband and of a credulous nature, at once vaguely poetical and definitely pessimistic. She depreciated everything that belonged to herself; even when her children were praised to her face, she would deprecate enthusiasm with silence or a shrug. She believed in mysteries, in voices that called by night, in dreams, in premonitions, in the evil omen and the evil eye. Her brother had destroyed himself, and she was not the first of her race who had suffered from a congenital melancholia.
"I hope your scalded hand be doing nicely, ma'am," said David, with the politeness of a lover to the mother of his lass.
"Yes, thank you. 'Twas my own silly fault, trying to do two things at once. 'Tis of no consequence."
"I'll pour out the tea," said Margaret. "Then you needn't take your hand out of the sling, mother."
Mrs. Stanbury's profound and pathetic distrust and doubt that she could possess or achieve any good thing, extended from the greatest to the least interest in life. Now they ate and drank, and David ventured to praise a fine cake of which he asked for a second slice.
"Glad you like it, I'm sure," she said, "but 'tisn't much of a cake. Too stoggy and I forgot the lemon."
"Never want to taste a better," declared David, stoutly. "Our cakes to Ditsworthy ban't a patch on it."
Mrs. Stanbury smiled faintly.
"Did your mother catch any good from the organy tea?" she asked.
"Yes," answered David. "A power of good it did her, and I was specially to say she was greatly obliged for it; and if by lucky chance you'd saved up a few bunches more organies, she'd like 'em."
"Certainly, an' t'other herb to go along with it. I dried good store at the season of the year. Some people say the moon don't count in the matter; but there's a right and wrong in such things, and the moon did ought to be at the full without a doubt. Who be we to say that the wit of our grandfathers was of no account?"
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