“There you are!” he said, with a laugh—­“When you get into the house you can tell Uncle that you are a Rose Queen, a Hay Queen, and Queen of everything and everyone on Briar Farm, including your very humble servant, Robin Clifford!”

“And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!” added Landon, with a quick glance, doffing his cap.  “Mr. Clifford mustn’t expect to have it all his own way!”

“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Robin, turning upon him with a sudden fierceness.

Innocent gave him an appealing look.

“Don’t!—­Oh, don’t quarrel!” she whispered,—­and with a parting nod to the whole party of workers she hurried away.

With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men.  Then Robin, turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders.  He was a person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner of the farm when his uncle was dead.  Landon went close up to him.

“Mr. Clifford,” he said, somewhat thickly, “you heard what I said just now?  You mustn’t expect to have it all your own way!  There’s other men after the girl as well as you!”

Clifford glanced him up and down.

“Yourself, I suppose?” he retorted.

“And why not?” sneered Landon.

“Only because there are two sides to every question,” said Clifford, carelessly, with a laugh.  “And no decision can be arrived at till both are heard!”

He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily, and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song: 

   “Yonder comes a courteous knight,
      Lustily raking over the hay,
   He was well aware of a bonny lass,
      As she came wandering over the way. 
   Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!

   “Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said,
      Among the leaves that be so greene,
   If I were a king and wore a crown,
      Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene. 
   Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!”

Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.

“Those laugh best who laugh last!” he muttered, “And a whistling throstle has had its neck wrung before now!”

Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse.  Passing through the hall, which,—­unaltered since the days of its original building,—­ was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first into the kitchen to see Priscilla, who, assisted by a couple of strong rosy-cheeked girls, did all the housework and cooking of the farm.  She found that personage rolling out pastry and talking volubly as she rolled: 

“Ah!  You’ll never come to much good, Jenny Spinner,” she cried.  “What with a muck of dirty dishes in one corner and a muddle of ragged clouts in another, you’re the very model of a wife for a farm hand!  Can’t sew a gown for yerself neither, but bound to send it into town to be made for ye, and couldn’t put a button on a pair of breeches for fear of ‘urtin’ yer delicate fingers!  Well!  God ‘elp ye when the man comes as ye’re lookin’ for!  He’ll be a fool anyhow, for all men are that,—­but he’ll be twice a fool if he takes you for a life-satchel on his shoulders!”