He was a very powerful man, broad and heavy, and dressed in a suit of russet leather. His hands were tucked in his jerkin and his chin was sunk upon his breast as if he were wrapped in profound thought. The look upon his face was not so much of anger as of amazement. “I trust ye have had your fill?” he said at last, speaking in a slow, deep voice. “That we have,” said Gervase heartily. All the same he felt a kind of shame for having debauched himself so freely upon another’s property. Yet it would be idle to deny that a sense of well-being was uppermost in his mind at that moment. When all was said, this feeling outweighed any that he might have had of moral turpitude. “Well, then, having had your fill,” said the farmer, speaking as one who chooses his words, “you will not object perhaps to make payment?” “That I cannot do, I am sorry to say,” said Gervase. “It is just as I thought,” growled the farmer. “I ask your pardon,” said Gervase, “for taking your milk, but we have no money to pay for any food and we are starving.” The face of the farmer was very ugly now. “Starving, are ye? Well, my lad, ye shall both come with me to the constable.” “I am sorry I cannot oblige you in that,” said Gervase. “I own I have done you a wrong, but not such a wrong as to allow the law to mend it.” “Well, my lad, you shall not go without payment of some kind,” said the farmer, “and you can lay to that. Either step wi’ me to the constable, or if you’d rather have it that way, come out into the yard and have the properest thrashing you’ve had in all your born days.” “Well, perhaps that is not unfair--if you can give it me.” Gervase spoke with the modest readiness of a man of mettle. “Oh, I’ll give it you right enough,” said the farmer, “and you can lay to that.” Certainly he was a most formidable-looking fellow, and he spoke with a truculence sufficient to strike terror into all save the very stout of heart. But Gervase, having slept soundly and breakfasted well, was not inclined to quail. He stepped briskly into the yard at the farmer’s behest. But there a rude shock awaited him. “Diggory,” called the farmer to one of his hands at work in the yard, “you just fetch my horsewhip along. Ask mistress to give it thee. Now then, step lively.” Gervase, however, proceeded to show cause why Diggory should not step lively. “Oh no, you don’t, Master Giles,” he said to the farmer with a laugh. “Pray don’t think I am going to take it that way.” “Then what way are you going to take it, my lad?” “Man to man with the bare knuckles if I take it at all.” “Then by God you shall!” The farmer suddenly flung off his coat. “But you don’t know what you are out for, young fellow. A bit o’ whipcord will come a lot kinder to you than these ten commandments o’ mine.” “I think I’ll risk that,” said Gervase modestly.