ng his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, "we might
think you'd got him back again at the farm. What do you say to that,
Peter?"

Everyone knew that Peter believed in all sorts of crazy things, and when
Mr Benson put this jocular question to him several people turned to see
how he took it.

Lilac looked eagerly up at him also, for she had a faint hope that he
might somehow know that she was dairymaid, and would tell them so. That
would be a triumph indeed. At any rate he would stop all this silly
talk about the brownie. She had heard Grannie Dunch's stories scores of
times, and they were very interesting, but as to believing them--Lilac
felt far above such folly, and held them all in equal contempt, whether
they were of charms, ghosts, brownies, or other spirits. It was
therefore with dismay that she saw Peter's face get redder and redder
under the general gaze, and heard him instead of speaking up only
mutter, "I don't know nothing about it."

Moved by indignation at such foolishness, and at the mocking expression
an Mr Benson's round face, she ventured to give Peter's sleeve a sharp
pull. No more words came, he only shuffled his feet uneasily and showed
an evident desire to get out of the shop.

"Well, well," said the grocer, turning his attention to some money he
was counting out of a drawer, "never you mind, Peter. If you've got him
you'd better keep him, for he knows how to make good butter at any
rate."

Everyone laughed, as they always did at Mr Benson's speeches, and in
the midst of it Peter gathered up his money and left the shop with
Lilac. She felt so ruffled and vexed by what had passed, that she could
hardly attend to his directions as he pointed out the different shops
she had to go to. They were an ironmonger's, a linendraper's, and a
china shop, and in the last he told her she must wait until he came to
fetch her with the cart in about an hour's time. Lilac stood for a
moment looking after him as he drove away to put up his horse at the
inn. She was angry with Mr Benson, angry with the people who had
laughed, and angry with Peter. No wonder folks thought him half-silly
when he looked like that. And yet he knew twice as much as all of 'em
put together. Only that morning when Sober had cut his foot badly with
broken glass, it was Peter with his clumsy-looking gentle fingers who
had known how to stop the bleeding and bind up the wound in the best
way. But in spite of all this he could sta