“Aye, aye,” muttered the schoolmaster, as Adam disappeared, “there you go, stalking along—­stalking along; but you wouldn’t have been what you are if you hadn’t had a bit of old lame Bartle inside you.  The strongest calf must have something to suck at.  There’s plenty of these big, lumbering fellows ’ud never have known their A B C if it hadn’t been for Bartle Massey.  Well, well, Vixen, you foolish wench, what is it, what is it?  I must go in, must I?  Aye, aye, I’m never to have a will o’ my own any more.  And those pups—­what do you think I’m to do with ’em, when they’re twice as big as you?  For I’m pretty sure the father was that hulking bull-terrier of Will Baker’s—­wasn’t he now, eh, you sly hussy?”

(Here Vixen tucked her tail between her legs and ran forward into the house.  Subjects are sometimes broached which a well-bred female will ignore.)

“But where’s the use of talking to a woman with babbies?” continued Bartle.  “She’s got no conscience—­no conscience; it’s all run to milk.”

Book Three

Chapter XXII

Going to the Birthday Feast

The thirtieth of July was come, and it was one of those half-dozen warm days which sometimes occur in the middle of a rainy English summer.  No rain had fallen for the last three or four days, and the weather was perfect for that time of the year:  there was less dust than usual on the dark-green hedge-rows and on the wild camomile that starred the roadside, yet the grass was dry enough for the little children to roll on it, and there was no cloud but a long dash of light, downy ripple, high, high up in the far-off blue sky.  Perfect weather for an outdoor July merry-making, yet surely not the best time of year to be born in.  Nature seems to make a hot pause just then:  all the loveliest flowers are gone; the sweet time of early growth and vague hopes is past; and yet the time of harvest and ingathering is not come, and we tremble at the possible storms that may ruin the precious fruit in the moment of its ripeness.  The woods are all one dark monotonous green; the waggon-loads of hay no longer creep along the lanes, scattering their sweet-smelling fragments on the blackberry branches; the pastures are often a little tanned, yet the corn has not got its last splendour of red and gold; the lambs and calves have lost all traces of their innocent frisky prettiness, and have become stupid young sheep and cows.  But it is a time of leisure on the farm—­that pause between hay-and corn-harvest, and so the farmers and labourers in Hayslope and Broxton thought the captain did well to come of age just then, when they could give their undivided minds to the flavour of the great cask of ale which had been brewed the autumn after “the heir” was born, and was to be tapped on his twenty-first birthday.  The air had been merry with the ringing of church-bells very early this morning, and every one had made haste to get through the needful work before twelve, when it would be time to think of getting ready to go to the Chase.