‘I foresee too much; it means more than I thought.’

On the present occasion he wore gaiters and a leathern apron, and worked with his shirt-sleeves rolled up beyond his elbows, disclosing solid and fleshy rather than muscular arms.  They were stained by the cider, and two or three brown apple-pips from the pomace he was handling were to be seen sticking on them here and there.

The other prominent figure was that of Richard Crickett, the parish clerk, a kind of Bowdlerized rake, who ate only as much as a woman, and had the rheumatism in his left hand.  The remainder of the group, brown-faced peasants, wore smock-frocks embroidered on the shoulders with hearts and diamonds, and were girt round their middle with a strap, another being worn round the right wrist.

‘And have you seen the steward, Mr. Springrove?’ said the clerk.

’Just a glimpse of him; but ’twas just enough to show me that he’s not here for long.’

‘Why mid that be?’

’He’ll never stand the vagaries of the female figure holden the reins—­not he.’

‘She d’ pay en well,’ said a grinder; ‘and money’s money.’

‘Ah—­’tis:  very much so,’ the clerk replied.

‘Yes, yes, naibour Crickett,’ said Springrove, ’but she’ll vlee in a passion—­all the fat will be in the fire—­and there’s an end o’t. . . .  Yes, she is a one,’ continued the farmer, resting, raising his eyes, and reading the features of a distant apple.

‘She is,’ said Gad, resting too (it is wonderful how prompt a journeyman is in following his master’s initiative to rest) and reflectively regarding the ground in front of him.

‘True:  a one is she,’ the clerk chimed in, shaking his head ominously.

‘She has such a temper,’ said the farmer, ’and is so wilful too.  You may as well try to stop a footpath as stop her when she has taken anything into her head.  I’d as soon grind little green crabs all day as live wi’ her.’

’’Tis a temper she hev, ‘tis,’ the clerk replied, ’though I be a servant of the Church that say it.  But she isn’t goen to flee in a passion this time.’

The audience waited for the continuation of the speech, as if they knew from experience the exact distance off it lay in the future.

The clerk swallowed nothing as if it were a great deal, and then went on, ’There’s some’at between ’em:  mark my words, naibours —­there’s some’at between ’em.’

‘D’ye mean it?’

‘I d’ know it.  He came last Saturday, didn’t he?’

‘’A did, truly,’ said Gad Weedy, at the same time taking an apple from the hopper of the mill, eating a piece, and flinging back the remainder to be ground up for cider.

‘He went to church a-Sunday,’ said the clerk again.

‘’A did.’

’And she kept her eye upon en all the service, her face flickeren between red and white, but never stoppen at either.’

Mr. Springrove nodded, and went to the press.