Daniel, himself, looked prosperous enough as he stood hammering and whistling, and occasionally pausing with his head on one side, and his mouth screwed up but emitting no sound, to survey his handiwork. He was a bullet-headed young man of about four or five-and-twenty, with twinkling blue eyes, and a face, the natural ruddy tone of which was overlaid by such a fine veneer of sunburn that it was now of a uniform brick-colour. His expression was jovial, not to say jocular; his mouth wore an habitual grin when it was not whistling, and on this particular occasion some inward source of jollity appeared to entertain him, for he not only frequently chuckled but winked to himself. Having inserted the last tack into the crumbling wall, he paused, removing his hat and scratching his head meditatively; for the first time his face wore a somewhat serious, not to say puzzled expression, and his eyes travelled dubiously over the flaunting array of blossoming weeds on the roof. “I wonder,” quoth Daniel to himself, “if ’twould look better if I was to scrape out them there. Maybe the thatch wouldn’t hold together, though--it’s a-been agrowed over sich a-many year, I d’ ’low I’ll let ’em bide--they do look well enough where they be.” And, after coming to this decision, he was preparing to descend from the ladder when he was suddenly hailed by a chorus of voices from the lane on the other side of his garden-hedge. “Hello, Dan’l!”--“Hallo, old cock!”--“Well, bwoy, bist getten’ all to rights afore weddin’?” Daniel put on his hat and turned slowly round on his rung. “E-es,” he said, grinning sheepishly, “that’s about it. The job’s to be done the day arter to-morrow.” A party of young men had halted just outside his little gate; it was Saturday and, though only five o’clock, their field-work was over and they were now on their way to the allotments; a rough, sunburnt, merry-looking group, most of them bearing the marks of the day’s toil on heated face and earth-stained apparel; one or two of them with spade and fork on shoulder, others with dangling empty sacks. September was drawing to a close and potato-getting was in full swing. It was observable that as they addressed Chaffey, each man assumed a knowing and jocular air; this one nudged his neighbour, that one winked at Daniel himself. “You’m to be called home for last time to-morrow, bain’t ye, Dan’l?” inquired Abel Bolt, elbowing himself to the front. “E-es,” responded Daniel, “we be to be called last time to-morrow an’ tied-up o’ Monday.” Abel threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “I should like to come to your weddin’, Dan!” he cried ecstatically, “I d’ ’low I should.” “Ye won’t, though,” retorted Chaffey. “Ye’ll be jist in the thick o’ your ploughin’--I thought o’ that. I axed the Reverend to fix time a-purpose. No, we’ll be wed on the quiet, Phœbe an’ me--I settled that.”