But however soundly the swans might hiss, Will, after three days of red-faced rehearsal on the pleasant bank of the Brad, felt ready to challenge his female critic in all save the polka she had set for examination, and this he determined—after failing to hunt it out—was no fair part of the wager. A whole evening he had spent reknitting the thread of old acquaintanceship with carolling cottagers, gleaning much gratitude for his kindly attentions, but not the melody he was after, and being forced politely to abide while gaffers piped “Heave away, my Johnny,” or gammers ruthlessly completed “Midsummer Fair” or “Dashing away with the Smoothing Iron.” However, he could now turn out such complicated military flourishes that he excited his own military ardour, and felt like marching in his thousands, and doing such deeds of derring-do that the lips of all the damsels of Essex would vie to change places with that mouthpiece. It was high time then that this particular damsel should understand how vain was her hope that he could be baffled by a tube. Though he might not know that polka, he was sure that whatever “concinnity” might be, he could perform with it, and impatience began to steal over him at the delay in the test performance. For if Jinny had fobbed him off with the shepherd on Tuesday, she evaded service altogether on Friday. Even Nip might conceivably crop up with some small groceries tied on to him, and he could not try it on the dog. Also, unless he saw her soon, the cattle fair would be upon them, and she still unsaved. He must, with the relics of his copybook paper, compose a new note, formally citing her to stand and hear, and deliver the gloves. But it was not easy to fix the place for deciding the wager. The riverside meadows she could not well get at in her cart, and for her to come specially on foot was hardly to be expected, in view of her household labours. To cut her off and perform to her on a high road was to run risks of being publicly ridiculous: even by-ways have ears. Suppose his nerve or his breath failed, suppose some impish accident muffled up the horn: there would he be with swollen cheeks, a mountain in labour, producing not even, a mouse-squeak; the mock of man and beast. But there was Steeples Wood—not too far back off the high road, but approached by a tangly brake that few ever penetrated: there—if he could persuade her to it—was the ideal place for the great horn solo. In a postscript he would express his willingness to take off her hands the purchase of the Showman’s horse. To convey all this by correspondence involved almost as much effort as the practising, though his renewed call upon the Bible came to Caleb and Martha as the natural sequel of his faith-cure. It was no small feat of composition, this particular letter, in face of a people, which, however abundant its horses, appeared to have had neither “wagers” upon them, nor “gloves,” riding or other. II