fellows have to supply the deficiency.  They do it with just as haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if the probation be not very severe and searching, is the same.  The leader can rely on the faithfulness of his host:  the comrade is sworn to serve.  Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal.  The idea of turning off and forsaking his friend never once crossed his mind, though his condition was desperate, and his friend’s behaviour that of a Bedlamite.  He announced several times impatiently that they would be too late for dinner.  His friend did not budge.  Dinner seemed nothing to him.  There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old dog’s nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger was.  Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung himself down beside the taciturn boy, accepting his fate.

Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in the lane behind the hedge where the boys reclined.  One was a travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and spread a tawny umbrella.  The other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and tentless.  They saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other’s benefit the daylong-doings of the weather, as it had affected their individual experience and followed their prophecies.  Both had anticipated and foretold a bit of rain before night, and therefore both welcomed the wet with satisfaction.  A monotonous betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony with the still hum of the air.  From the weather theme they fell upon the blessings of tobacco; how it was the poor man’s friend, his company, his consolation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the morning.

“Better than a wife!” chuckled the tinker.  “No curtain-lecturin’ with a pipe.  Your pipe an’t a shrew.”

“That be it!” the other chimed in.  “Your pipe doan’t mak’ ye out wi’ all the cash Saturday evenin’.”

“Take one,” said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment, handing a grimy short clay.  Speed-the-Plough filled from the tinker’s pouch, and continued his praises.

“Penny a day, and there y’are, primed!  Better than a wife?  Ha, ha!”

“And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,” added tinker.

“So ye can!” Speed-the-Plough took him up.  “And ye doan’t want for to.  Leastways, t’other case.  I means pipe.”

“And,” continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, it don’t bring repentance after it.”

“Not nohow, master, it doan’t!  And”—­Speed-the-Plough cocked his eye—­“it doan’t eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan’t.”

Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher, which the tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up the subject by saying the best thing that could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence to the drip and patter of the shower.