“We’se goin’ sweetheartin’, ain’t we, Ipsie,” he said gently, the beautiful smile that made his venerable face so fine and lovable, again lighting up his sunken eyes.  “Come along, little lass!  Come along!”

“She ain’t finished her dinner!” breathlessly proclaimed a long-legged girl of about ten, who had run after the child, being one of her numerous sisters; “Mother said she was to come back straight.”

“I s’ant go back!” declared Ipsie defiantly; “Zozey and me’s sweetheartin’!”

Old Josey chuckled.

“That’s so!  So we be!” he said tranquilly; “Come along little lass!  Come along!” And to the panting sister of the tiny autocrat, he said:  “You go on, my gel!  I’ll bring the baby, ‘oldin’ on jest as she is now to my smock.  She won’t stir more’n a fond bird wot’s stickin’ its little claws into ye for shelter.  I’ll bring ’er along ‘ome, an’ she’ll finish ’er dinner fine, like a real good baby!  Come along, little lass!  Come along!”

So murmuring, the old man and young child went on together, and the group of villagers dispersed.  Roger Buggins, however, paused a moment before turning up the lane which led to the ‘Mother Huff.’

“You tell Passon,” he said addressing Bainton, “You tell him as ’ow the Five Sisters be chalked for layin’ low on Wednesday marnin’!”

“Never fear!” responded Bainton; “I’ll tell ’im.  If ’tworn’t Sunday, I’d tell ’im now, but it’s onny fair he should ‘ave a bit o’ peace on the seventh day like the rest of us.  He’ll be fair mazed like when he knows it,—­ay! and I shouldn’t wonder if he gave Oliver Leach a bit of ’is mind.  For all that he’s so quiet, there’s a real devil in ‘im wot the sperrit o’ God keeps down,—­but it’s there, lurkin’ low in ‘is mind, an’ when ’is eyes flashes blue like lightnin’ afore a storm, the devil looks straight out of ’im, it do reely now!”

“Well, well!” said Buggins, tolerantly, with the dignified air of one closing the discussion; “Devil or no devil, you tell ’im as ’ow the Five Sisters be chalked for layin’ low on Wednesday marnin’.  Good day t’ye!”

“Good day!” responded Bainton, and the two worthies panted, each to go on their several ways, Buggins to the ‘Mother Huff’ from whose opened latticed windows the smell of roast beef and onions, which generally composed the Buggins’ Sunday meal, came in odorous whiffs down the little lane, almost smothering the delicate perfume of the sprouting sweet-briar hedges on either side, and the nodding cowslips in the grass below; Bainton to his own cottage on the border of his master’s grounds, a pretty little dwelling with a thatched roof almost overgrown with wistaria just breaking into flower.

Far away from St. Rest, the greater world swung on its way; the whirl of society, politics, fashion and frivolity revolved like the wheel in a squirrel’s cage, round which the poor little imprisoned animal leaps and turns incessantly in a miserable make-believe of forest freedom,—­but to the old gardener who lifted the latch of his gate and went in to the Sunday dinner prepared for him by his stout and energetic helpmate, who was one of the best dairy-women in the whole countryside, there was only one grave piece of news in the universe worth considering or discussing, and that was the ‘layin’ low of the Five Sisters.’