Jenny was already seated at the head of the table and received him with a gracious smile:—­

“If you’ll fetch another plate, Sam, my dear,” she remarked, “I can begin for to cut the cake.”

BLACKBIRD’S INSPIRATION

“What be lookin’ at?” inquired Mrs. Bold, emerging from her dairy, and incidentally wiping her hands on a corner of her apron.  “There ye’ve a-been standin’ in a regular stud all the time I were a-swillin’ out the churn.”

Farmer Bold was standing at the open stable door, his grey-bearded chin resting on his big brown hand, his eyes staring meditatively in front of him.  It was a breezy, sunny autumn day, and all the world about him was astir with life; gawky yellow-legged fowls pecked and scratched round his feet with prodigious activity, calves were bleating in the adjacent pens, while the very pigs were scuttling about their styes, squealing the while as though it were supper-time.  The wind whistled blithely round the corners of the goodly cornstacks to the rear of the barton, and piped shrilly through their eaves; the monthly roses, still ablow, swung hither and thither in the fresh blast, strewing the cobblestones with their delicate petals.  In all the gay, busy scene only the figure of the master himself was motionless, if one might except the old black horse which he appeared to be contemplating, the angular outlines of whose bony form might be seen dimly defined in the dusk of its stable.

Towards this animal Farmer Bold now pointed, removing his hand from his chin for the purpose.  “I wur a-lookin’ at Blackbird,” he said, “poor wold chap!  He was a good beast in his day, but I d’ ’low his day be fair done.  Tis the last night what Blackbird ’ull spend in this ’ere stall.”

“Why,” cried Mrs. Bold quickly, “ye don’t mean to say—­”

“I mean to say,” interrupted her husband, turning to her with a resolutely final air, “I mean to say as Blackbird’s sold.”

“Sold!” ejaculated the woman incredulously.  “Who’d ever go for to buy Blackbird?—­wi’out it be one o’ they rag-and-bone men, or maybe for a salt cart.  Well, Joe,” with gathering ire, “I didn’t think ye’d go for to give up the faithful wold fellow after all these years, to be knocked about and ill-used at the last.”

“Nay, and ye needn’t think it—­ye mid know as I wouldn’t do sich a thing,” returned her lord with equal heat.  “I’ve sold en”—­he paused, continuing with some hesitation, as he nodded sideways over his shoulder, “I’ve a-sold en up yonder for the kennels.”

“What!  To be ate up by them there nasty hounds?  Joseph!”

“Come now,” cried the farmer defiantly, “ye must look at it sensible, Mary.  Poor Blackbird, he be a-come to his end, same as we all must come to it soon or late.  He ‘ve a-been goin’ short these two years—­ye could see that for yourself—­and now his poor wold back be a-givin’ out, ’tis the most merciful thing to destroy en.  They’ll turn en out to-week in the field up along—­beautiful grass they have there—­and he’ll enjoy hisself a bit, and won’t know nothin’ about it when they finish en off.”