"I don't keer, I shall. Why ain't I at work, eh? Never another stroke will I do for him; wish that my hammer may come on my head if I do. Look here, parson," he went on, catching the other's arm hard in a grasp of iron, "that's his lass, that is--that's his young lady--Miss Eve Pelly; God bless her for a perfect angel, and too good for him. He's engaged to her, he is--engaged to be married, and he's got thousands and thousands of his own, and the Foundry, and horses to hunt wi', and he ain't satisfied. No, no; I ain't done yet. Look here, ain't all that enough for any man? You know what's right, and what ain't. What call's he got to come between me and she?" He jerked one fist in the direction taken by Daisy, and went on. "Things ran all right between us before he steps in with his London dandy air, and his short coot hair, and fine clothes. Old Joe Banks was willing; and as for Missus Banks, why, bless her, she's always been like a mother to me. I'd saved up a hundred and sixty pun' ten, all hard earnings, and we was soon to be married, and then he comes between us and turns the girl's head. You come on to me when I'd gone up the hill-side there, to chew it all over, after she'd huffed me this morning, and I coot up rough. I say, warn't it enough to make any man coot up rough?" "It was, indeed, Podmore," said the vicar, kindly. "But I wean't stand it, that I wean't," roared the young man, like an angry bull. "A man's a man even if he is a master. I'll fight fair; but if I don't break every bone in his false skin, my name ain't Tom Podmore." This burst over, he resumed his cap and snatched down his sleeves, looking half ashamed of his effusion in the presence of a stranger, and he shrank away a little as the vicar laid his hand upon his arm. "Look here, Podmore," he said kindly; "when I went first to school they used to give me for a copy to write, `Do nothing rashly.' Don't you do anything rashly, my friend, because things done in haste are repented of at leisure. I have come down here to be a friend, I hope, to everybody, and as you were the first man I met in Dumford, I shall look upon you as one of the first to have a call upon me." "Thanky, sir, thanky kindly," said Podmore, in a quieter tone. "I don't know how it is, but you've got a kind of way with you that gets over a fellow." "She seems a nice, pretty, well-behaved girl, that Daisy Banks," said the vicar. "There isn't a better nor a truer-hearted girl nor a prettier nowhere for twenty miles round," cried the young fellow, flushing up with a lover's pride. "Why look at her, sir, side by side with Miss Eve, that's a born lady. Why, Miss Eve's that delicate and poor beside my Daisy, as there ain't no comparison 'tween 'em. My Daisy, as was," he added, sorrowfully. "Something's come over her like of late, and it's all over now." The great strong fellow turned his back, and resting one hand upon the stile, his broad shoulders gave a heave or two.