As if echoing her thoughts, “Fine morning!” said the pig-auctioneer to Farmer Gale. It was a special mark of attention from this gentlemanly-looking man, elevated on a massive stool, who wore gaiters and a great gleaming signet-ring that showed as he turned the pages of a written catalogue. This was kept by elastic strings in a grand calf cover, though pigskin would have seemed more in keeping. Two acolytes, standing on the ground, scribbled in their lowliness. Buyers sat on the rim of the pens, with their feet dangling over the pigs, and the pig-drovers hovered near, in their long high aprons of coarse brown sacking. Soon Farmer Gale became as fascinated as Master Peartree, for the pigs did indeed look “thrifty and prosperous,” and as the penful was on the point of falling to a low bid, he nipped in and secured a bargain. While he was complacently cutting away bristles, signing his acquisition with his scissors, Jinny stole away, feeling he was safely penned. IV Will had long since disappeared from her ken, but when she came to the long roofed place, open at the side, where beribboned and straw-plaited hacks and draught-horses were tied to their staples, there he was, chained just as firmly by a sort of sentinel stubbornness. It was as if he was saying “Through my body first!” The thrill his proximity gave her was shot through with a renewed resentment against this obviously undiminished opposition of his. But she was resolved to meet him with banter rather than with anger. “You buying horses?” she said genially. “No, I am not buying horses!” he answered roughly. “But aren’t you ashamed to be here—the only one of your sex?” “Surely not!” said Jinny. “Where’s your eyes?” He looked round, wonderingly. “Under your nose!” guided Jinny. “There, isn’t that a mare? And I passed sows and ewes and heifers by the score.” “And that’s what you class yourself with? And then you deny you are lowering yourself!” “I always lower myself when I get off my cart.” “Well, you get up again! That’s the best advice I can give you. Drive home!” “And shirk my job!” “_I’ll_ do your job.” “You! I thought you were not buying horses.” “You know what I mean. How much does old Flippance want to give?”