His voice shook. At the mysterious grief in his face--a grief that was half rage, and the more pitiful for that--she began to sob. Abel came up. 'A mourning-party, seemingly,' he said, holding his lantern so as to light each face in turn. 'I want to marry your daughter.' Abel roared. 'Another? First 'er bags a parson and next a squire!' 'Farmer.' 'It'll be the king on his throne next. Laws, girl! you're like beer and treacle.' 'You've not answered me,' said Reddin. 'She's set.' 'Eh?' 'Set. Bespoke. Let.' 'She's a right to change her mind.' 'Nay! A bargain's a bargain. Why, they've bought the clothes, mister, and the furniture and the cake!' 'If she comes with me, you'll go home with a cheque for fifty pounds, and that's all I've got,' said Reddin naively. 'I tell you, sir, she's let,' Abel repeated. 'A bargain's a bargain!' It occurred to him that the Callow garden might, with fifty pounds, be filled with beehives from end to end. 'Mister,' he said, almost in tears, 'you didn't ought to go for to 'tice me! Eh! dear 'eart, the wood I could buy, and the white paint and a separator and queens from foreign parts!' He made a gesture of despair and his face worked. 'You could have a new harp if you wanted one.' Reddin suggested. Abel gulped. 'A bargain's a bargain!' he repeated. 'And I promised the parson.' He turned away. ''Azel,' he said over his shoulder, 'you munna go along of this gent. Many's the time,' he added turning round and surveying her moodily, 'as you've gone agen me and done what I gainsayed.' With a long imploring look he hitched the harp on his back and trudged away. Hazel followed. But Reddin stepped in front of her. 'Look here, Hazel! You say you don't like hurting things. You're hurting me!' Looking at his haggard face, she knew it was true. She wiped her tears away with her sleeve. 'It inna my fault. I'm allus hurting things. I canna set foot in the garden nor cook a cabbage but I kill a lot of little pretty flies and things. And when we take honey there's allus bees hurted. I'm bound to go agen you or Ed'ard, and I canna go agen Ed'ard; he sets store by me, does Ed'ard. You should 'a seen the primmyroses he put in my room last night; I slep' at the parsonage along of us being late.' Reddin frowned as if in physical pain. 'And he bought me stockings, all thin, and a sky-blue petticoat.' Reddin looked round. He would have picked her up then and there and taken her to Undern, but the road was full of people. 'I couldna go agen Ed'ard! He'm that kind. Foxy likes him, too; she'd ne'er growl at 'im.' 'Perhaps,' Reddin said hoarsely, 'Foxy'd like me if I gave her bones.' 'She wouldna! You'm got blood on you.' She drew away coldly at this remembrance, which had been obliterated by Reddin's grief. 'You'm got the blood of a many little foxes on you,' she said, and her voice cut him like sharp sleet--'little foxes as met have died quick and easy wi' a gunshot. And you've watched 'em minced alive.'