“Well, I’m sure,” exclaimed one irate matron, catching up her empty basket, “she must be a wonderful faymale whoever she mid be, but I’d like to know who looks after the house while she be traipsin’ about i’ the fields. Some folks has one notion o’ dooty an’ some has another. To my mind it’s more a ’ooman’s duty to see to things at home—to get her husband’s dinner an’ that—” “There, ’tis just the very thing what she’ve gone home-along to do,” shouted Bill. “An’ so tired as the creature was, too, wasn’t she?” said somebody. “Ah! that was she,” rejoined somebody else. “There she was fair wore out. The perspiration was a-pourin’ down her face. ‘Sit down an’ rest, do, my dear,’ says I. ‘No,’ says she, ‘I must run home so quick as I can to get my Jarge’s dinner.” “Jarge!” said Mrs Frost, with withering scorn, “Jarge! It’ll be that poor little down-trod Mrs Crumpler they be all keepin’ up such a charm about,” she explained contemptuously to her neighbour with the basket. “Mrs Crumpler—that poor little plain-faytured—” “Handsome is as handsome does,” interrupted Bill; “I d’ ’low Jarge do think Sally hasn’t her match i’ th’ world.” “‘You be a plucky little ’ooman,’” chanted old Joe, gazing maliciously at the crestfallen assemblage of matrons; “them was Farmer Ellery’s words: a plucky little ’ooman. Be there any cider left—?” “Just a little,” said Bill. “Hand it here, then,” cried Joe with a virtuous air; “we’ll drink Mrs Crumpler’s health.” “Well,” said Mrs Frost, turning away with an indignant air, “I wouldn’t like to have Mrs Crumpler’s conscience, however plucky she mid be. A body would have thought ’twas bad enough to have a drunken husband wi’out teachin’ other folks to get into bad ways. Drink her health, indeed! Somebody did ought to speak to her.” The suggestion was warmly taken up, and a select deputation of three immediately turned their steps in the direction of Mrs Crumpler’s cottage. The matron with the basket, one Mrs Dewey by name, had volunteered to be spokeswoman; but she stopped short in the open doorway conscious of a certain diffidence, for Mr Crumpler, very pale in complexion and watery about the eyes, was up and seated in his elbow-chair by the fire. Sally, who with a flushed and tired face was making hasty preparations for dinner, turned as Mrs Dewey paused on the threshold, and smiled cheerfully. “Come in, do, Mrs Dewey, I haven’t a minute to shake hands—I be terr’ble busy. There, my poor husband did have a accident last night, an’ I be takin’ his place in the hay-field.” “So we heared,” rejoined Mrs Dewey sedately. She stepped in, followed by Mrs Frost and Jenny Weatherby, the remaining member of the deputation, a spinster with a father just as troublesome as anybody else’s husband. All took their seats in response to a hurried wave of Mrs Crumpler’s hand. “Oh, ye’ve heared!” said Sally, looking from one to the other with a somewhat awkward laugh.