eathery blossom of the cow-parsley.
Turning to the left at the foot of the lane, the hedge on the right was
lower. Over it, and across an expanse of sloping fields dotted here and
there with snow-white hawthorn bushes, Antony saw the roofs of houses and
cottages, and, beyond them, the sea. It lay grey and tranquil under an
equally grey sky. A solitary fishing smack, red-sailed, made a note of
colour in the neutral atmosphere of sea and sky. To the right was a
gorse-crowned cliff; to the left, and across the estuary, a headland ran
far out into the water.

"Byestry," said the man, nodding in the direction of the roofs. "Us doant
go down into t'place. Yue'm to have Widow Jenkins's cottage, her as died
back tue Christmas. 'Tis a quarter o'mile or so from t'town, and 'twill be
that mooch nearer t'old Hall. Yue see yon chimbleys by they three elms
yonder? 'Tis Doctor's house. Yue'm tue go there this evenin' aboot seven
o'clock 'e bid me tell 'ee. Where was yue working tue last?"

The question came abruptly. For one brief second Antony was non-plussed.
Then he recovered himself.

"'Tis London I've just come from," he replied airily enough. "I've been
doing a bit on my own account lately."

"Hmm," replied the man. "I reckon if I'd been workin' my own jobs, I'd
not take an under post in a hurry. But yue knoaws your own business best.
T'last chap as was underest gardener oop tue t'Hall got took on by folks
living over Exeter way. He boarded wi' t'blacksmith and his wife. Maybe
yue'm a married man?"

"I am not," said Antony smiling.

"Not got a maid at all?" queried the other.

Antony shook his head.

The man opened his eyes. "Lord love 'ee, what do un want wi' a cottage,
then! Yue'd best be takin' oop wi' a wife. There's a sight of vitty maids
tue Byestry, and 'tis lonesome like comin' home to an empty hearth and no
supper. There's Rose Darell, her's a gued maid, and has a bit o' money; or
Jenny Horswell, her's a bit o' a squint, but is a fair vitty maid tue
t'cleanin'; or Vicky Mathers, her's as pretty as a picter, but her's not
the money nor the house ways o' Rose or Jenny," he ended with thoughtful
consideration.

Antony laughed, despite the fact that inwardly he was not a trifle
dismayed. He had no mind to have the belles of Byestry thus paraded for
his choice. Work, he had accepted with the conditions, but a wife was a
very different matter.

"Sure, I'm not a marryin' man at all, I am not," he responded, a
hypo