Jim with distant courtesy waited, nibbling a straw, till her paroxysm was over. ‘One word, Miss Tuck—Mrs.—Margery,’ he then recommenced gravely. ‘You’ll find me man enough to respect your wish, and to leave you to yourself—for ever and ever, if that’s all. But I’ve just one word of advice to render ’ee. That is, that before you go to Silverthorn Dairy yourself you let me drive ahead and call on your father. He’s friends with me, and he’s not friends with you. I can break the news, a little at a time, and I think I can gain his good will for you now, even though the wedding be no natural wedding at all. At any count, I can hear what he’s got to say about ’ee, and come back here and tell ’ee.’ She nodded a cool assent to this, and he left her strolling about the garden in the sunlight while he went on to reconnoitre as agreed. It must not be supposed that Jim’s dutiful echoes of Margery’s regret at her precipitate marriage were all gospel; and there is no doubt that his private intention, after telling the dairy-farmer what had happened, was to ask his temporary assent to her caprice, till, in the course of time, she should be reasoned out of her whims and induced to settle down with Jim in a natural manner. He had, it is true, been somewhat nettled by her firm objection to him, and her keen sorrow for what she had done to please another; but he hoped for the best. But, alas for the astute Jim’s calculations! He drove on to the dairy, whose white walls now gleamed in the morning sun; made fast the horse to a ring in the wall, and entered the barton. Before knocking, he perceived the dairyman walking across from a gate in the other direction, as if he had just come in. Jim went over to him. Since the unfortunate incident on the morning of the intended wedding they had merely been on nodding terms, from a sense of awkwardness in their relations. ‘What—is that thee?’ said Dairyman Tucker, in a voice which unmistakably startled Jim by its abrupt fierceness. ‘A pretty fellow thou be’st!’ It was a bad beginning for the young man’s life as a son-in-law, and augured ill for the delicate consultation he desired. ‘What’s the matter?’ said Jim. ‘Matter! I wish some folks would burn their lime without burning other folks’ property along wi’ it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You call yourself a man, Jim Hayward, and an honest lime-burner, and a respectable, market-keeping Christen, and yet at six o’clock this morning, instead o’ being where you ought to ha’ been—at your work, there was neither vell or mark o’ thee to be seen!’ ‘Faith, I don’t know what you are raving at,’ said Jim.