He countered cleverly. “We don’t mind taking medicine—so long as we’re well!” We! He was identifying himself with his despised Brethren: such is human nature under attack. But Miss Gentry was not at the end of her resources. “Well, what do you do when you break your legs? Pray the bones straight?” “But we don’t break our legs. I never heard of a Peculiar breaking his leg.” “But why shouldn’t a Peculiar break his leg?” “That’s not my affair. He don’t. I’ve got Peculiars all over my beat, and never have I known one to break a leg. A broken heart, now——!” “But if he _did_ break a leg?” persisted Miss Gentry. “If any one could break a leg, it would be me!” he said crossly. “Well, then what would _you_ do—if you broke your leg?” Bundock was worn out. “What’s the good of meeting troubles half-way?” he snapped, turning on his heel. “Yours seem to have come more than half-way,” scoffed Miss Gentry. Bundock clapped his hand to the mud-patch, stung in his tenderest part. He wheeled round prestissimo, raging with repartee. But the door had closed—too late! Solitary, the sable Squibs dominated the doorstep—like a sardonic spirit. Bundock was turning away angrily, though now fearlessly, when with a sudden thought he caught up the cat and plucked out one of her hairs. It was not revenge—it was merely that his youngest daughter had a sty, for which he believed the black hair an infallible remedy. CHAPTER II JINNY ON HER ROUNDS _Give me simple labouring folk,_ _Who love their work,_ _Whose virtue is a song_ _To cheer God along._ THOREAU. I THUS it was that the days passed without any literate and discreet female descending on Frog Farm or any rejuvenation appearing in Martha’s bonnet; and the unread letter lay—guarded by two china dogs—on the parlour mantelpiece awaiting the carrier. For it had been decided, after nightly discussions that were a change for Caleb from the Christadelphian curtain-lectures, to fall back on Jinny after all. She was to read it to Martha in Caleb’s careful absence, and was to be stopped if the improper seemed looming. Alas, the best-laid schemes of mice and Marthas gang agley, and by the day that Jinny’s horn resounded along the raised road that led to the farm, the world was changed for Caleb and Martha. There was, in fact—for the first time in Jinny’s experience—neither of the twain to meet her as Methusalem ambled under the drooping witch-elms towards the twin doors. It was a tilt-cart,—with two tall wheels, and although Jinny steered it and packed it and unpacked it, and scoured it and hitched Methusalem to it, its weather-beaten canvas blazoned in fading black letters the legend: