“Look here!” he said; “about this unfortunate business.  Why don’t you and your son make up your minds without more ado to let your granddaughter go out to service?  You’ve been here all your lives; I don’t want to see you go.”

The least touch of color invaded the old man’s carved and grayish face.

“Askin’ your pardon,” he said, “my son sticks by his girl, and I sticks by my son!”

“Oh! very well; you know your own business, Gaunt.  I spoke for your good.”

A faint smile curled the corners of old Gaunt’s mouth downward beneath his gray moustaches.

“Thank you kindly,” he said.

Malloring raised a finger to his cap and passed on.  Though he felt a longing to stride his feelings off, he did not increase his pace, knowing that the old man’s eyes were following him.  But how pig-headed they were, seeing nothing but their own point of view!  Well, he could not alter his decision.  They would go at the June quarter—­not a day before, nor after.

Passing Tryst’s cottage, he noticed a ‘fly’ drawn up outside, and its driver talking to a woman in hat and coat at the cottage doorway.  She avoided his eye.

‘The wife’s sister again!’ he thought.  ’So that fellow’s going to be an ass, too?  Hopeless, stubborn lot!’ And his mind passed on to his scheme for draining the bottom fields at Cantley Bromage.  This village trouble was too small to occupy for long the mind of one who had so many duties. . . .

Old Gaunt remained at the gate watching till the tall figure passed out of sight, then limped slowly down the path and entered his son’s cottage.  Tom Gaunt, not long in from work, was sitting in his shirtsleeves, reading the paper—­a short, thick-set man with small eyes, round, ruddy cheeks, and humorous lips indifferently concealed by a ragged moustache.  Even in repose there was about him something talkative and disputatious.  He was clearly the kind of man whose eyes and wit would sparkle above a pewter pot.  A good workman, he averaged out an income of perhaps eighteen shillings a week, counting the two shillings’ worth of vegetables that he grew.  His erring daughter washed for two old ladies in a bungalow, so that with old Gaunt’s five shillings from the parish, the total resources of this family of five, including two small boys at school, was seven and twenty shillings a week.  Quite a sum!  His comparative wealth no doubt contributed to the reputation of Tom Gaunt, well known as local wag and disturber of political meetings.  His method with these gatherings, whether Liberal or Tory, had a certain masterly simplicity.  By interjecting questions that could not be understood, and commenting on the answers received, he insured perpetual laughter, with the most salutary effects on the over-consideration of any political question, together with a tendency to make his neighbors say:  “Ah!  Tom Gaunt, he’s a proper caution, he is!” An encomium dear to his ears.