Adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds than the amount he contributed to the rent-roll.  There were other people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions rather than from their pocket, and of these Bartle Massey was one.  His lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day, so Adam lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner, that he might walk up with his old friend; for he was a little too shy to join the Poyser party on this public occasion.  Opportunities of getting to Hetty’s side would be sure to turn up in the course of the day, and Adam contented himself with that for he disliked any risk of being “joked” about Hetty—­the big, outspoken, fearless man was very shy and diffident as to his love-making.

“Well, Mester Massey,” said Adam, as Bartle came up “I’m going to dine upstairs with you to-day:  the captain’s sent me orders.”

“Ah!” said Bartle, pausing, with one hand on his back.  “Then there’s something in the wind—­there’s something in the wind.  Have you heard anything about what the old squire means to do?”

“Why, yes,” said Adam; “I’ll tell you what I know, because I believe you can keep a still tongue in your head if you like, and I hope you’ll not let drop a word till it’s common talk, for I’ve particular reasons against its being known.”

“Trust to me, my boy, trust to me.  I’ve got no wife to worm it out of me and then run out and cackle it in everybody’s hearing.  If you trust a man, let him be a bachelor—­let him be a bachelor.”

“Well, then, it was so far settled yesterday that I’m to take the management o’ the woods.  The captain sent for me t’ offer it me, when I was seeing to the poles and things here and I’ve agreed to’t.  But if anybody asks any questions upstairs, just you take no notice, and turn the talk to something else, and I’ll be obliged to you.  Now, let us go on, for we’re pretty nigh the last, I think.”

“I know what to do, never fear,” said Bartle, moving on.  “The news will be good sauce to my dinner.  Aye, aye, my boy, you’ll get on.  I’ll back you for an eye at measuring and a head-piece for figures, against any man in this county and you’ve had good teaching—­you’ve had good teaching.”

When they got upstairs, the question which Arthur had left unsettled, as to who was to be president, and who vice, was still under discussion, so that Adam’s entrance passed without remark.

“It stands to sense,” Mr. Casson was saying, “as old Mr. Poyser, as is th’ oldest man i’ the room, should sit at top o’ the table.  I wasn’t butler fifteen year without learning the rights and the wrongs about dinner.”

“Nay, nay,” said old Martin, “I’n gi’en up to my son; I’m no tenant now:  let my son take my place.  Th’ ould foulks ha’ had their turn:  they mun make way for the young uns.”

“I should ha’ thought the biggest tenant had the best right, more nor th’ oldest,” said Luke Britton, who was not fond of the critical Mr. Poyser; “there’s Mester Holdsworth has more land nor anybody else on th’ estate.”