ked after her, the old one stupidly, the young one
with lighted eyes.

"Will you get supper?" growled Old Gerard.

"No," said Young Gerard, "I won't. I want no supper. Put down that
rope. I am taller and stronger than you, and why I've let you go on
beating me so long I don't know, unless it is that you began to beat me
when you were taller and stronger than I. If you want any supper, get
it yourself."

Old Gerard turned red and purple. "The boy's mad!" he gasped. "Do you
know what happens to servants who defy their masters?"

"Yes," said Young Gerard, "then they're lords." And he too went into
the shed.

"Try that on Combe Ivy!" bawled Old Gerard, "and see what you'll get
for it. I thank fortune, I'll be quit of you tomorrow-- What's that
to-do in the valley?" he muttered, and stared down the hill.

Away in the hollows and shadows he saw splashes of moving light, and
heard far-off snatches of song and laughter, but the movements and
sounds were still so distant that they seemed to be only those of
ghosts and echoes. Nearer they came and nearer, and now in the night he
could discern a great rabble stumbling among the dips and rises of the
hills.

"They're heading this way," said Old Gerard. "Why, tis the
wedding-party," he said amazed, "if it's not witchcraft. But why are
they coming here?"

"Hola! hola! hola!" shouted a tipsy voice hard by.

"Here's dribblings from the wineskin," said Old Gerard; and up the
track struggled a drunken man, waving a torch above his head. It was
the guest whom he had directed in the morning.

"Hola!" he shouted again on seeing Old Gerard.

"Well, racketer?" said the shepherd, with a chuckle.

"Shall a man not racket at another man's wedding?" he cried. "Let some
one be jolly, say I!"

"The bridegroom," said Old Gerard.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the other, "the bridegroom! He was first in high
feather and last in the sulks."

"The bride, then."

"Ha, ha! ha, ha! during the toasts he tried to kiss her."

"Wouldn't she?"

"She wouldn't."

"Hark!" said Old Gerard, "here they come." The sound of rollicking
increased as the rout drew nearer.

"He's taking her home across the river," said the guest. "I wouldn't be
she. There she sat, her pretty face fixed and frozen, but a fright in
her that shook her whole body. You could see it shake. And we drank,
how we drank! to the bride and the groom and their daughters and sons,
to the sire and the priest, and the ring and the bed,