Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition of authorities.  Mr. Irwine’s testimony was not to be disputed; but, on the other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less startling.  Martin had never “heard tell” of the French being good for much.  Mr. Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a long draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of his own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when Bartle Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking his first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust his forefinger into the canister, “Why, Adam, how happened you not to be at church on Sunday?  Answer me that, you rascal.  The anthem went limping without you.  Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his old age?”

“No, Mr. Massey,” said Adam.  “Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I was.  I was in no bad company.”

“She’s gone, Adam—­gone to Snowfield,” said Mr. Poyser, reminded of Dinah for the first time this evening.  “I thought you’d ha’ persuaded her better.  Nought ’ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon.  The missis has hardly got over it.  I thought she’d ha’ no sperrit for th’ harvest supper.”

Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in, but she had had “no heart” to mention the bad news.

“What!” said Bartle, with an air of disgust.  “Was there a woman concerned?  Then I give you up, Adam.”

“But it’s a woman you’n spoke well on, Bartle,” said Mr. Poyser.  “Come now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha’ been a bad invention if they’d all been like Dinah.”

“I meant her voice, man—­I meant her voice, that was all,” said Bartle.  “I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears.  As for other things, I daresay she’s like the rest o’ the women—­thinks two and two ’ll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.”

“Aye, aye!” said Mrs. Poyser; “one ‘ud think, an’ hear some folks talk, as the men war ‘cute enough to count the corns in a bag o’ wheat wi’ only smelling at it.  They can see through a barn-door, they can.  Perhaps that’s the reason they can see so little o’ this side on’t.”

Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.

“Ah!” said Bartle sneeringly, “the women are quick enough—­they’re quick enough.  They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows ’em himself.”

“Like enough,” said Mrs. Poyser, “for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun ’em, an’ they can only catch ’em by the tail.  I can count a stocking-top while a man’s getting’s tongue ready an’ when he outs wi’ his speech at last, there’s little broth to be made on’t.  It’s your dead chicks take the longest hatchin’.  Howiver, I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish:  God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”