The Revellers

“Eh, but she’s a well-bred ’un,” said Bolland, with sapient head-shake.

“She might be a first-prize winner at the Royal by her shape and markings; but, as matters stand, she’ll bring only fifteen pounds from a butcher. I stand to lose forty-five pounds by the bargain.”

“You canna fly i’ t’ feäce o’ Providence, Mr. Pickerin’.”

“Providence has little to do with it, I fancy. I can sell her to somebody else, if I like to work a swindle with her. I had my doubts at the time that she was too cheap.”

John Bolland rose. His red face was dusky with anger, and it sent a pang through Martin’s heart to see something of fear there, too.

“Noo, what are ye drivin’ at?” he growled, speaking with ominous calmness.

“You know well enough,” came the straight answer. “The poor thing has something wrong with her, and she will never hold a calf. Look here, Bolland, meet me fairly in the matter. Either give me back twenty pounds, and we’ll cry ‘quits,’ or sell me another next spring at the same price, and I’ll take my luck.”

Perhaps this via media might have been adopted had it presented itself earlier. But the word “swindle” stuck in the farmer’s throat, and he sank back into his chair.

“Nay, nay,” he said. “A bargain’s a bargain. You’ve gotten t’ papers – ”

It was the buyer’s turn to rise.

“To the devil with you and your papers!” he shouted. “Do you think I came here without making sure of my facts? Twice has this cow been in calf in your byre, and each time she missed. You knew her failing, and sold her under false pretenses. Of course, I cannot prove it, or I would have the law of you; but I did think you would act squarely.”

For some reason the elder Bolland was in a towering rage. Martin had never before seen him so angry, and the boy was perplexed by the knowledge that what Pickering said was quite true.

“I’ll not be sworn at nor threatened wi’ t’ law in my own house,” bellowed the farmer. “Get out! Look tiv’ your own business an’ leave me te follow mine.”

Pickering, too, was in a mighty temper. He took a half stride forward and shook out the thong of the whip.

“You psalm-singing humbug!” he thundered. “If you were a younger man – ”

Martin jumped between them; his right hand clenched a heavy kitchen poker.

Pickering half turned to the door with a bitter laugh.

“All right, my young cub!” he shouted. “I’m not such a fool, thank goodness, as to make bad worse. It’s lucky for you, boy, that you are not of the same kidney as that old ranter there. Catch me ever having more to do with any of his breed.”

“An’ what affair is it of yours, Mr. Pickerin’, who the boy belongs to? If all tales be true, you can’t afford to throw stones at other folks’s glass houses!”

Mrs. Bolland, stout, hooded, aproned, and fiery red in face, had come from the dairy, and now took a hand in the argument.

Pickering, annoyed at the unlooked-for presence of a woman, said sternly:

“Talk to your husband, not to me, ma’am. He wronged me by getting three times the value for a useless beast, and if you can convince him that he took an unfair advantage, I’m willing, even now – ”

But Mrs. Bolland had caught the flicker of amazement in Martin’s eye and was not to be mollified.

“Who are you, I’d like to know?” she shrilled, “coomin’ te one’s house an’ scandalizin’ us? A nice thing, to be sure, for a man like you to call John Bolland a wrongdoer. The cow won’t calve, won’t she? ’Tis a dispensation on you, George Pickerin’. You’re payin’ for yer own misdeeds. There’s plenty i’ Elmsdale wheä ken your char-ak-ter, let me tell you that. What’s become o’ Betsy Thwaites?”

But Pickering had resigned the contest. He was striding toward the “Black Lion,” where a dogcart awaited him, and he laughed to himself as the flood of vituperation swelled from the door of the farm.

“Gad!” he muttered, “how these women must cackle in the market! One old cow is hardly worth so much fuss!”

Still smiling at the storm he had raised, he gathered the reins, gave Fred, the ostler, a sixpence, and would have driven off had he not seen a pretty serving-maid gazing out through an upper window. Her face looked familiar.

“Hello!” he cried. “You and I know each other, don’t we?”

“No, we doan’t; an’ we’re not likely to,” was the pert reply.

“Eh, my! What have I done now?”

“Nowt to me, but my sister is Betsy Thwaites.”

“The deuce she is! Betsy isn’t half as nice-looking as you.”

“More shame on you that says it.”

“But, my dear girl, one should tell the truth and shame the devil.”

“Just listen to him!” Yet the window was raised a little higher, and the girl leaned out, for Pickering was a handsome man, with a tremendous reputation for gallantry of a somewhat pronounced type.

Fred, the stable help, struck the cob smartly with his open hand. Pickering swore, and bade him leave the mare alone and be off.

“I was sorry for Betsy,” he said, when the prancing pony was quieted, “but she and I agreed to differ. I got her a place at Hereford, and hope she’ll be married soon.”

“You’ll get me no place at Hereford, Mr. Pickerin’” – this with a coquettish toss of the head.

“Of course not. When is the feast here?”

“Next Monday it starts.”

“Very well. Good-by. I’ll see you on Monday.”

He blew her a kiss, and she laughed. As the smart turnout rattled through the village she looked after him.

“Betsy always did say he was such a man,” she murmured. “I’ll smack his feäce, though, if he comes near me a-Monday.”

And Fred, leaning sulkily over the yard gate, spat viciously on Pickering’s sixpence.

“Coomin’ here for t’ feäst, is he?” he growled. “Happen he’d better bide i’ Nottonby.”

CHAPTER II

STRANGERS, INDEED

Pickering left ruffled breasts behind him. The big farm in the center of the village was known as the White House, and had been owned by a Bolland since there were Bollands in the county. It was perched on a bank that rose steeply some twenty feet or more from the main road. Cartways of stiff gradient led down to the thoroughfare on either hand. A strong retaining wall, crowned with gooseberry bushes, marked the confines of the garden, which adjoined a row of cottages tenanted by laborers. Then came the White House itself, thatched, cleanly, comfortable-looking; beyond it, all fronting on the road, were stables and outbuildings.

Behind lay the remainder of the kitchen garden and an orchard, backed by a strip of meadowland that climbed rapidly toward the free moor with its whins and heather – a far-flung range of mountain given over to grouse and hardy sheep, and cleft by tiny ravines of exceeding beauty.

Across the village street stood some modern iron-roofed buildings, where Bolland kept his prize stock, and here was situated the real approach to the couple of hundred acres of rich arable land which he farmed. The house and rear pastures were his own; he rented the rest. Of late years he had ceased to grow grain, save for the limited purposes of his stock, and had gone in more and more for pedigree cattle.