Martha was wonderful. “What a piece! What a master!” he thought. One might live with a woman for half a century, yet never fathom her depths. Not a gasp, not a cry, not a sigh of vain yearning. Merely: “Then it’ll be from Cousin Caroline. When she went back to London at Michaelmas she promised to let us know if she reached home safe, and if your brother George was better.” “Ay, ay!” he assented happily. “Oi’d disremembered Cousin Caroline.” It was a merciful oblivion, for his Cockney cousin had come from Limehouse in August and stayed two months, protesting that it was impossible to bide a day in a place where there wasn’t a neighbour to speak to except a silly shepherd who was never at home; where water was scooped filthily from a green-scummy pond instead of flowing naturally from a tap; where on moonless nights you could break your leg at your own doorstep; where frogs croaked and cocks crowed and pigeons moaned and foxes barked at the unholiest hours; where disgusting vermin were nailed on the trees and where you broke out in itching blotches, which folks might ascribe to “harvesters,” but which were susceptible of a more domestic explanation. Moreover, Cousin Caroline had brought a profuse and uninvited progeny, whose unexpected appearance in Jinny’s cart, though vaguely comforting as recalling the days when the house resounded with child-life, was in truth at disturbing discord with the Quakerish calm into which Frog Farm had subsided after the flight of its teeming chicks. As Caleb came along now, convoying Bundock through the lush orchard grass, the echo of Cousin Caroline’s querulous voice rasped his brain and made him wish she had pretermitted her promise to write. As for his ailing brother George, information about whom she was probably sending, it was obvious that he was no worse, else one would assuredly have heard of his funeral. Had not George carefully let him know when he got married? Caroline was a Churchwoman—he remembered suddenly—she had compromised Frog Farm by eking out Parson Fallow’s miserable congregation. And now she had sent her letter just at a season to plague and muddy a worthy Dissenter. “Sow sorry to give ye sow much ill-convenience, Mr. Bundock,” he repeated, as they reached the farmhouse. IV