“Is he a hard man?” enquired Jean, his face falling. “Nay, when father’s not crossed there’s no kinder man in the whole o’ Lancashire. But if you go the wrong way to work wi’ him! Poor Teddy, my brother, did that, and my father turned him out. He’s sorry enough about it now, poor father is, for Ted went and ’listed and hasn’t never been home since.” The stranger laid down his knife and fork and looked at her earnestly. “If your brother were taken prisoner,” he said, “would not he, your father, be glad if he were treated kindly? If he had a chance of coming home, and only wanted just what I want now, shelter for a few days to help him, what would your father say if one refused him?” “There’s something in that,” said Molly, and the glance which she threw at the young stranger was much softer and more encouraging than her words. An hour or two wore away, and Molly finished tidying, and spread the long tables, and fed the chickens, and set her dairy to rights. In all these operations Jean Marie Kerenec assisted her, and he told her the most wonderful things the while, so that now her eyes brightened with astonishment, and now her bonny cheek grew pale with alarm, and sometimes her red lips would droop and tears of compassion would hang upon her lashes. But she thought her new friend an heroic and most delightful personage. When the shadows had crept over the face of the land and the first bat circled round the house, the tramp of clogged feet, and the sound of many voices, announced the return of the harvesters. “You’d best hide,” said Molly, struck with a sudden thought. “Yes, hide in the buttery till the folks are abed and my father is having his glass comfortable by the fire; then I’ll tackle him.” So into the buttery Jean Marie disappeared, and prudent Molly locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Presently he heard the farmer come stamping in in his top-boots, and a series of thuds in the passage, which meant that the men, having duly “washed them” at the pump, were now respectfully divesting themselves of their clogs. He heard old Winny groaning over the fatigues of the day, and Susan giggling with some rustic admirer, and the quick tread of Molly’s feet on the flags as she hastened up and down the table. Then a roar from Farmer Rainford— “Hurry up, wilt thou, lass? Wheer’s the moog? I’m that dry I could very near drink water. ‘Is the field nigh cut?’ says thou. No, nor half-cut” (and here the farmer rapped out an oath or two); “the lads don’t work near so well as they used to do: nor the wenches neither. There’s storm-weather about. Thou might ha’ made shift to come out a bit before supper—another pair of hands is worth summat, I tell thee.” Another pair of hands! Jean Marie rubbed his own in the darkness, and drew a long breath. Here was a lever by which he might help his cause.