There followed a deafening volley of cheering,--tankards clinked together and shone in the flickering light and every eye looked towards the girl, who, colouring deeply, shrank from the tumult around her like a leaf shivering in a storm-wind. Robin glanced at her with a half-jealous, half-anxious look, but her face was turned away from him. He lifted his tankard and, bowing towards her, drank the contents. When the toast was fully pledged, Farmer Jocelyn got up, amid much clapping of hands, stamping of feet and thumping on the boards. He waited till quiet was restored, and then, speaking in strong resonant accents, said: "Boys, I thank you! You're all boys to me, young and old, for you've worked on the farm so long that I seem to know your faces as well as I know the shape of the land and the trees on the ridges. You've wished me health and long life--and I take it that your wishes are honest--but I've had a long life already and mustn't expect much more of it. However, the farm will go on just the same whether I'm here or elsewhere,--and no man that works well on it will be turned away from it,--that I can promise you! And the advice I've always given to you I give to you again,--stick to the land and the work of the land! There's nothing finer in the world than the fresh air and the scent of the good brown earth that gives you the reward of your labour, always providing it is labour and not 'scamp' service. When I'm gone you'll perhaps remember what I say,--and think it not so badly said either. I thank you for your good wishes and"--here he hesitated--"my little girl here thanks you too. Next time you make the hay--if I'm not with you--I ask you to be as merry as you are to-night and to drink to my memory! For whenever one master of Briar Farm has gone there's always been another in his place!--and there always will be!" He paused,--then lifting a full tankard which had been put beside him, he drank a few drops of its contents--"God bless you all! May you long have the will to work and the health to enjoy the fruits of honest labour!" There was another outburst of noisy cheering, followed by a new kind of clamour, "A song!" "A song!" "Who'll begin?" "Where's Steevy?" "Little Steevy!" "Steevy! Wheer be ye got to?" roared one old fellow with very white hair and a very red face--"ye're not so small as ye can hide in yer mother's thimble!" A young giant of a man stood up in response to this adjuration, blushing and smiling bashfully. "Here I be!" "Sing away, lad, sing away!" "Wet yer pipe, and whistle!" "Tune up, my blackbird!" Steevy, thus adjured, straightened himself to his full stature of over six feet and drank off a cupful of ale. Then he began in a remarkably fine and mellow tenor: "Would you choose a wife For a happy life, Leave the town and the country take; Where Susan and Doll, And Jenny and Moll, Follow Harry and John, While harvest goes on, And merrily, merrily rake!"