“I d’ ’low you are. But you undertook to fill George’s place. I don’t pay George for doing boy’s work.” Mrs Crumpler cogitated with a troubled face for a moment, and then her brow cleared. “I could come two days for Jarge’s one,” she cried triumphantly. “’Tis to be hoped he’ll be all right to-morrow and able to do his work, but I’ll come up this way, sir, if ye’ll let me.” “Well, you’re a plucky little soul, I’ll say that for you,” remarked the farmer, more good-naturedly than he had yet spoken. “There, get your rake then.” Mr Ellery’s words of eulogy were repeated by many voices when the men assembled at the dinner hour in the shady corner near the pool. Mrs Crumpler elected to go home for that meal, remarking cheerfully that she thought Jarge would be pretty well hisself by that time, and would be lookin’ out for a bite o’ summat. “Maister hissel’ did tell her she was a good plucked ’un,” said Bill, “and so she be. I d’ ’low there bain’t many ’oomen as ’ud gie theirselves all that trouble for a chap like Jarge.” “I could wish my missus ’ud take a leaf out of her book. There, the way the ’ooman do go on if I do take so much as the leastest drap.” “My wold ’ooman wouldn’t put herself out for I, neither,” said another. As they sat and watched the retreating figure of Mrs Crumpler hastening across the field, they felt themselves more and more injured, and were disposed to vent their grievances on their own women-kind, who presently appeared to minister to them. “A few spuds,” remarked Bill, discontentedly prodding at the little basin from which his wife had just removed the cloth. “A few spuds and hardly so much grease to ’em as ’ll m’isten ’em. We’ve a-had a little ’ooman among us to-day as could show ’ee summat, my dear.” “A ’ooman!” cried Mrs Frost, instantly on the alert. “Oh, e-es,” responded Bill, shaking his head. “A ’ooman as knowed summat of the duties of a wife, didn’t she, Ed’ard?” “Jist about,” said “Ed’ard” with his mouth full. “A ’ooman what come down to take her husband’s place along o’ his bein’ a bit drinky to-day an’ not able to work. She did come to the maister so bold as a lion, an’ she did say, ‘Here be I, so well able to do a day’s work as he’—didn’t she?” “Ah!” put in Joe, raising his head from a mug of cider which had just found its way into his hands, “an’ when she did find she couldn’t get on so fast as us menfolks, she says to maister, ‘I can do two days’ work then,’ says she, ‘to make up for it.’ That’s a ’ooman!” With a further shake of the head as a tribute to the absent Mrs Crumpler, Joe applied himself to the cider-mug again, but this last remark was taken up by several of his neighbours. “That’s a ’ooman, indeed,” they said, and every man whose better-half chanced to be in attendance looked reproachfully at her as he spoke.