“Three-fifty!”

“Come, Mr Middlecoat!” protested the auctioneer, after another glance at Mr Baker.  “Indeed, sir, you will not drive me to believe as you’re jokin’?”

Mr Middlecoat, whose gaze had rested on Mr Baker, faced about, and, looking down the table, caught the eye of one of his supporters, who nodded.

“Three-seven-five!” called out the supporter.

“Four hundred!” Mr Middlecoat promptly capped the bid.

“That’s a little better, gentlemen,” Mr Dewy encouraged them.

Apparently, too, it was the best.  For some three minutes he exhorted and rebuked them, but could evoke no further bid.  There was a prolonged pause.  The auctioneer glanced again at Mr Baker, who, while seemingly unaware of the appeal, slightly inclined his head.  Mr Middlecoat’s eyes had rested on Mr Baker all the while.

“One hundred acres, as you may say, at less than four pounds the acre!  Well, if any man had prophesied this to me on the day when I entered business—­” Mr Dewy checked himself, and let fall the hammer.  “Mr Middlecoat, sir, you’re a lucky man.”  He announced, “Lot 4—­Two arable fields, known as Willaparc Veor and Willapark Vear respectively:  the one of six acres, one rood, and six perches; the other of three and a half acres.”

As the auction proceeded, even the guileless Cai could not help detecting an air of unreality about it.  Mr Middlecoat bid for everything.  Now and again, if Mr Middlecoat miscalculated, a friend helped and raised the price by a very few pounds for Mr Middlecoat to try again:  which Mr Middlecoat duly did.  It became obvious that Mr Middlecoat had somehow possessed himself of a pretty close guess at what price Squire Willyams would part with each lot instead of “buying in”; that Mr Baker knew it; that the auctioneer knew it; that everyone in the room knew they knew; and that nobody in the room was disposed to prevent Mr Middlecoat’s acquiring whatever was offered.

Under these conditions the sale proceeded swiftly, pleasantly, and without a hitch.  Cai cast frequent glances back at the door.  But the minutes sped on, and still Mrs Bosenna did not appear.

“Lot 9—­A field known as Barton’s Orchard.  Two perches only short of two acres—­”

“Say twenty-five,” said Mr Middlecoat carelessly.

Again Cai glanced back.  The farm land had been fetching on an average some twenty to twenty-five pounds an acre. . . .  Why was Mrs Bosenna not here?

On an impulse—­annoyed, perhaps, by the young farmer’s take-it-for-granted tone—­he called out “Thirty!”

The auctioneer and Mr Baker—­who had just signified, by a slight frown, that he could not accept the young farmer’s bid—­glanced up incuriously.  Mr Middlecoat, too, turned about, not recognising the voice of his new “bonnet,”—­to use a term not unfamiliar in auctioneering.

But Cai did catch their glances:  for at the same moment he, too, wheeled about at the sound of a deep voice by the door.