"Then don’t thee talk about waste and sich-like foolishness; I thowt tha’d more sense, Hiram, that I did. Nawther is young Maister what tha thinks him, let me tell thee; he’s stiffening like a good un an’ there’s them as says he’s getten th’ whip-hand o’ Hiram Hey already." "Stiffening, is he?" cried Hiram, whom the jibe stung more keenly because he could not but admit the truth of it. "Well, there’s room an’ to spare, for he hes as slack a back as iver I clapped een on. But if tha thinks he can best Hiram Hey, Sunday or week-day——" He stopped and shaded his eyes with both hands as he looked more keenly up the fields. Two figures had topped the crest—one a girl’s, the other a man’s, loose-built and of a swinging carriage. "Nay, _I_ niver said I thowt as mich," said Martha demurely, not heeding the direction of Hiram’s glance. "’Twas shepherd Jose said it yestereen when he stepped down to th’ house wi’ th’ week’s lamb." "What, Jose!" cried the other, with an angry cackle. "He niver had a mind aboon sheep, hedn’t Jose, an’ sheep is poor wastrels when all’s said. So tha lets an owd chap like yond come whispering i’ thy ear, dost ’a, Martha?" "An’ who’s to say nay to me, I should like to know?" Her voice was combative, but she leaned a little toward Hiram as she spoke, and he all but took the last dire step of all. Very foolish showed Hiram, as he stood looking at the maid, with caution in one eye and in the other a frank admiration of the comeliness which showed so wholesome and so fresh amid the greenery of field and hedgerow. And all the while he was murmuring, "Go slow, lad, go slow, I tell thee," and his lips were moving shiftlessly to the refrain. "Thou’rt tongue-tied, Hiram. Who’s to say nay to me, I axed thee?" laughed Martha. Hiram rocked the milk pail gently with one hand, and stared up the new-ploughed furrows of the field ahead of him. "Thy own good sense, lass, should say thee nay," he answered guardedly. "Them as tends sheep, an’ nowt but sheep, gets witless as an owd bell-wether; an’ if I war a lass I’d as lief wed a turnip on a besom-stick as shepherd Jose." "If tha wert a lass, Hiram, tha’d die i’ spinsterhood, I’m thinking." Martha’s attack was spirited, but she sighed a little as she noted Hiram’s far-away regard; his thoughts were with the land, she fancied, when she fain would have brought them nearer home. Yet, as it chanced Hiram Hey was not thinking of farm-matters at the moment; Martha had her back to the ploughed field, and she could not see that the two figures which had lately topped the rise were coming down the field-side toward the stile. And it was plain now to Hiram that one was Janet Ratcliffe, the other Wayne of Marsh. "It’s queer, is th’ way o’ things," said Martha presently, loth to go her ways, yet too impatient and too womanly to stand there with no word spoken. "Oh, ay? Well, things war niver owt but queer," answered Hiram, startled out of his abstraction.