Mrs. Bold sighed.  Perhaps she knew almost better than her husband how much toil and trouble it cost to get twenty-two shillings together.  Twenty pounds of butter, twenty-two dozen eggs, eighty-eight quarts of milk!  What early risings, what goings to and fro, what long sittings with cramped limbs and aching back, milking cow after cow in summer heat and winter cold, how many weary hours’ standing in the flagged dairy before twenty-two shillings could be scraped together!  She turned away, without another word.

Later in the evening poor old Blackbird was brought out of his stall, and, after receiving the farewell caresses of master and mistress, was led away, limping, to the kennel pasture.

“Don’t ’urry en,” called the farmer to the lad who had charge of him.  “Tis a long journey for he—­two mile and more; let en take his time.  He’ll get there soon enough.”

The next morning, just as Mrs. Bold had finished getting breakfast, her husband came to the dairy in a state of amused excitement.

“There, ye’ll never think!  I al’ays did say beasts was so sensible as Christians if ye took a bit of notice of ’em.  I was a-goin’ round stables jist now, and if I didn’t find wold Blackbird in his own stall, jist same as ever.  I did rub my eyes and think I must be dreamin’, but there he were layin’ down, quite at home.  He al’ays had a trick of openin’ gates, ye know, and he must jist ha’ walked away i’ th’ night.  He wur awful tired, pore beast—­’twas so much as I could do to get en off again.”

“Ye sent en off again!” cried Mrs. Bold indignantly.  “Well, I shouldn’t ha’ thought ye could have found it in yer heart!  The poor wold horse did come back to we, so trustin’, and you to go an drive en away again to his death!  Dear, men be awful hard-hearted!”

“Of all the onraisonable creeturs, you are the onraisonablest,” cried the farmer, much aggrieved.  “Was I to go and take the folks’ money and keep the money’s worth?  A nice name I’d get in the country!  They’d be sayin’ I stole en away myself, very like.  No, I did send en up so soon as I could, so as they shouldn’t be s’archin’ for ’en.”

Mrs. Bold clapped a plate upon the table.

“Sit down,” she cried imperatively.  “Ye’ll be ready for your own breakfast, though you wouldn’t give pore Blackbird a bit.”

“Who says I didn’t give en a bit?” retorted Joseph.  “Ye be al’ays jumpin’ at notions, Mary.  Blackbird had as good a feed o’ carn afore he did go as ever a horse had.”

“Much good it’ll do en when he’s a-goin’ to be killed,” returned his spouse inconsequently.  “There, it’s no use talkin’; I must make haste wi’ my breakfast and get back to my work.  It’s well for I as I be able to work a bit yet, else I suppose ye’d be sendin’ me to the knackers.”

“I never heerd tell as you was a harse,” shouted the farmer.  The wit and force of the retort seemed to strike him even as he uttered it, for his indignant expression was almost immediately replaced by a good-humoured grin.  “I had ye there, Mary,” he chuckled. “’I never heerd tell as you was a harse, says I.”