now, master, to your
heart's content. Or even water." And he walked over to the Well-House,
and pointed invitingly to the bucket.

Old Gillman followed him with one eye open. "It's too late for that,
boy. When you've turned toper for six months, after sixty sober years,
it'll take you another six to drop the habit. That's what these
daughters do for their dads. But we'll not talk of em." He stood
beside Martin and stared down at the padlock. "How did the pretty go?"

"In the swing, like a swift."

"Why not through the gate like a gal?"

"The keys wouldn't turn."

"Which way?"

"The right way."

"You should ha' tried em the wrong way, boy."

"That would have locked it," said Martin.

"Azactly," said Old Gillman; and slipped the padlock from the staple
and put it in his pocket. "Come along up now."

Martin followed him through the orchard and the paddock and the garden
and the farmyard to the house. He noticed that everything was in the
pink of condition. But as he passed the stables he heard the cows
lowing badly.

The farm-kitchen was a big one. It had all the things that go to make
the best farm-kitchens: such as red bricks and heavy smoke-blackened
beams, and a deep hearth with a great fire on it and settles inside,
from which one could look up at the chimney-shaft to the sky, and clay
pipes and spills alongside, and a muller for wine or beer; and hams and
sides of bacon and strings on onions and bunches of herbs; much pewter,
and a copper warming-pan, and brass candlesticks, and a grandfather
clock; a cherrywood dresser and wheelback chairs polished with age; and
a great scrubbed oaken table to seat a harvest-supper, planed from a
single mighty plank. It was as clean as everything else in that good
room, but all the scrubbing would not efface the circular stains
wherever men had sat and drunk; and that was all the way round and in
the middle. There were mugs and a Toby jug upon it now. Old Gillman
filled two of the mugs, and lifted one to Martin, and Martin echoed the
action like a looking-glass. And they toasted each other in good Audit
Ale.

"Well," said Old Gillman stuffing his pipe, "it's been a peaceful time,
and now us must just see how things go."

"They look shipshape enough at the moment," said Martin.

"Ah," said Old Gillman shaking his head, "that's the lads. They're good
lads when you let em alone. But what it'll be now they maids get
meddling again us can't foretell. It were bad eno