Rose and Ja by side in the trap that belonged to the Pookes. In his good-nature and readiness to do whatever was kind, Jan had promptly acceded to Rose’s request that he should help her to bring Kitty home. It was not right, she said, that the child should be left on the moor, when her father was dead, and her aunt in despair.

“You know, Jan,” she said, pressing against the driver’s side, and speaking low and confidentially, “I am dear Kitty’s very, very best friend,’I may say, her only real friend,’and have to fight her battles like a Turk.”

“I did not know that,” observed Jan in surprise, ill-disguised, for his mind ran to the incidents of the Ashburton fair.

“You boys don’t know everything. I love Kitty dearly, and I believe she loves me. We have no secrets from each other, and now that she is in trouble, my heart flies out to she, and I want to be with her, and break the news to her very, very gently.”

“I thought”’began Jan, then paused.

Rose looked up in his dull, kindly face, and said roguishly, “Oh, Jan, a penny for your thoughts. No, really; I will give half a crown’a thought with you must be so precious, because so rare.”

A little nettled, Jan said, “I thought this, Rose: from your treatment of Kate the other day at the fair, that you were her enemy rather than her friend.”

“That is because you are an old buffle-head. Of course we are bosom friends, but I’m full of fun, and we tease one another’we girls’just as kids gambol. You are so heavy and solemn and dull, you don’t understand our gambols. You are like a great ox looking on at kids and lambs, and wondering what it all means when they frisk, and you take it for solemn earnest.”

“But about the quarrel at the stall’the kerchief?”

“That was play.”

“And the workbox that Noah knocked from under her arm? Was that play?”

“Purely. Jan, I had a much better workbox which I wanted to give Kate, and you went and spoiled my purpose by giving her that trumpery affair. I am not ashamed to own it. I told Noah to strike it from under her arm, that I might give her the box I had put aside for her.”

“And she has it?”

“Yes; oh dear, yes!’of course she has it.”

Jan shook his head; he was puzzled, but supposed all was right’supposed, because he was too straightforward and good-hearted to mistrust the girl who spoke so frankly, with great eyes looking him full in the face, and smiling. Impudence is more convincing than innocence.

Then Rose said, “How good you are, Jan’how tremendously good! Really, it is a privilege to live in the same parish, and drive in the same buggy beside so excellent a Christian.”

“What are you at now?” was Jan’s outspoken response.

“I mean what I say, Jan. Considering how you’ve been treated, I declare that by your conduct you do a lot more good to me than any number of sermons.”

“How so? You are making game of me.”

“Not a bit; I’m serious. How is it you show your goodness? Why, by driving me to Brimpts.”

“Oh, I have nothing else to do, and I like a drive.”

“With me?’or perhaps I just spoil the pleasure,” Rose asked, with a roguish look out of the corners of her eyes.

The young yeoman was unaccustomed to making gallant speeches, and he let slip the opportunity thus adroitly offered him. Rose curled her lip, as he replied’

“It is always pleasanter to have someone to talk to than to be alone, especially for a long drive.”

“But it is so good, so very good of you to fetch her.”

“Why should I be such a churl as not to go when asked?”

“After what has occurred, you know. What a fellow you are! In the orchard, you know.”

Pooke turned blood-red. A fly was tickling him; he raised the butt-end of his whip and rubbed his nose with it.

“Get along, Tucker!” he shouted. Tucker was the horse.

“I hope I shall profit better from your example than I have from all the parson’s sermons,” pursued Rose.

“What are you at?” asked Pooke uneasily, conscious that some ulterior end was in his companion’s view, as she thus lavished encomiums on him, and then dug into his nerves a needlepoint of sharp remark.

“What am I at? Oh, Jan! nothing at all, but sitting here with my hands in my lap, so happy to have a drive’and in such excellent company’company so good.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“It is not every man would lend his cart, nay, drive himself, to do a favour to a girl who had treated him outrageously.”

“When did you treat me so?”

“I’oh, Jan’not I! I could not have done that. A thousand times no”’ Rose spoke in pretty agitation, and fluttered at his side. “I mean Kitty.”

“Kitty? Get along, Tucker!’it’s no use your trying to scratch yourself with your hind hoof, and run at the same time.” He addressed the horse, which was executing awkward gymnastics. “Excuse me, Rose; I must dismount. There is a briar stinging Tucker.”

Jan drew up, descended, and slapped with his open hand where a horse-fly was engaged sucking blood. The fly was too wide awake to be killed; it rose, and sailed away. Then young Pooke mounted again.

“Get along, Tucker!” he said, and applied the whip.

“I mean,” pursued Rose, as if there had ensued no interruption. “I mean, after you had been treated so shamefully.”

“I didn’t know it.”

“Really, Jan! Everyone knows that Kitty refused you. It is the village talk, and everyone says it was scandalous.”

“Drat it! there is that fly again at Tucker.”

“Oh, if you can think of nothing but Tucker, I’ll be silent.”

“Don’t be cross, Rose, I must consider Tucker, as I am driver. There might be accidents.”

“Not for the world. Of course you must consider Tucker, and poor little I must be content to come into your mind in the loops and gaps not took up by the horse and the gadfly.”

“What do you suppose Tucker cost father?” asked Pooke, clumsily endeavouring to change the topic.

“I really don’t know.”

“Eight pounds, and he is worth twenty. That was a piece of luck for father.”

“Luck comes to those who desarve it,” said Rose. “I am not surprised at you and your family being prosperous in all you undertake. There’s no knowing, Jan,”’she spoke solemnly,’“you may feel low and discouraged at being, so to speak, kicked over the orchard hedge by Kate, but it may be a blessing in disguise, who can tell? but Providence may have in view someone for you much better suited’much in every way, than Kitty.”

“Drat it! there is that fly again.”

“Mr. Puddicombe’what a good soul he is!’has been about the place spreading the news.”

“What news?”

“About Kitty and the schoolmaster.”

“Kitty and the schoolmaster?” echoed Pooke. His brows went up, his jaw dropped, and his cheek became mottled.

“Haven’t you heard? Why, poor dear Jan, she went helter-skelter away from the orchard where she had trampled on you to fling herself into the arms of Mr. Thingamy-jig. I cannot tell his name’I mean the new schoolmaster.”

“How do you know?”

“Of course I know. Mr. Puddicombe is brimming with the news. They went like a pair of turtle-doves cooing and billing to Mr. Puddicombe, and he has nearly run his legs down to stumps since. The schoolmaster”’

“But I don’t mean about the schoolmaster.” Pooke spoke with a tremble in his voice.

“Oh! about that affair, that comical affair in the orchard? Half the village, I reckon, was out behind the hedges looking and listening. There was Betsy Baker, and there was Jenny Jones, and that sprig of a chap, Tommy Croft’I won’t be sure they heard, but I fancy so’anyhow, everyone has been talking of it, and pitying you that you were made ridiculous; and then to go off, right on end, and accept a schoolmaster.” In a tone of infinite contempt, Rose added, “A schoolmaster! It takes ten tailors to make a man, and ten schoolmasters to make a tailor; Puddicombe excepted’that was a man, and was so highly respected, he knew how to make himself looked up to, and folk forgave him his profession for his own sake. But this new whipper-snapper! And to be rejected for him!”

Jan Pooke writhed. He had not heard the news of Kate’s engagement. Somehow it had been kept from, or had not reached, him. The fire had distracted men’s and women’s thoughts from the affairs of Kate, Bramber, and himself. His colour changed, and he flushed purple. He shared the prejudice entertained by farmers and labourers’by all who were semi-educated and wholly uneducated’for the man of culture that was striving to enlighten dull minds and wake torpid intelligences. Parsons and schoolmasters are in the same category. The heavy soul resents being raised to spiritual life, and the heavy mind resents being wakened to intellectual life. It ever will be so, and it ever has been so. A man going along a road found a sodden toper lying in a ditch. He tried to pull him out. “Leave alone!” roared the drunken man. “I likes it, I enjoys it. I’ll knock you down if you don’t let me lie in my ditch. There are effets there, and slugs there, and frogs and toads; get along your own way and leave me where I am.”

Pooke and Rose Ash had imbibed the views of their parents and companions, and the prevailing atmosphere in a country parish. They had not risen above it, and their ideas took colour from it.

“It was scandalous conduct, was it not, Jan?” asked Rose. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stand it, not half an hour.”

“But what can I do?”

“What’? do’? Oh, lots!”

“I can do lots. I do not see it. If Kitty chooses”’His lips quivered, and he gulped down something.

“If Kitty chooses a beggarly schoolmaster instead of you, you must not let the neighbours see you are crestfallen. It will never do in coming out of church for everyone to point at you and say, ‘Poor chap! There he goes, Jan Pooke, whom Kitty Alone would not have; and here comes Mr. Thingamy-jig, whom she prefers so highly, looking like the cock of the walk.’ It would be very shaming, Jan, and I don’t think your dear father would like it terrible much.”

“I can do nothing,” said Jan, looking wistfully at the horse’s ears: “if Kitty likes Mr. Bramber, and don’t care for me.”

“And if the story of the silver peninks gets about?”

“Don’t, Rose!” His face expressed pain.

“I don’t wish to hurt you, I wish you well, Jan, you know. I was anxious that you should not be the laughing-stock of Coombe and the neighbourhood. That would be too dreadful. I have such a regard for you. Mind you, I love dear Kitty, but I cannot blind my eyes that her has made a mistake’a happy mistake for you, because, dear, good girl as she is, I do not think that she could ha’ made you happy.”

“Why not?”

“She would have been eternally axin’ questions which you could never answer.”

“There is something in that.”

“She’d have been wanting to take you to the bottoms of wells, you know, so as to see the stars by day. You would not like that, Jan?”

“No’there is something in that.”

“And to make you read that stupid book’Wordsworth, her calls it’in the evening, whilst she knitted. You couldn’t have stood that, Jan?”

“Horrible!’I should ha’ died.”

“Then you may rejoice that Providence has ordained that she should go after the schoolmaster. Now you must look out and see what step you can take to recover the respect of the parish.”

“How can I do that?”

“Oh, there be more fishes in the sea than come out of it, I reckon.”

Jan remained in meditation, speechless. Rose pressed close to his side.

“Have you no room?” he asked.

“Oh, ’tisn’t that altogether; my feelings overcame me. I do so, so pity you, you dear, poor Jan.”

Presently, as he continued silent, she said, “If I were you, when shortly you meet Kitty, and when she will be in my place at your side, and I ride behind, I would not look like an apple that has gone under the rollers, nor hang my ears like a whipped dog, but laugh and joke and whistle and be jolly, you know.”

“That don’t seem right, with her father burned to death.”

“She knows nothing of that, and is to know nothing of it from us. The proper person to tell her is Mrs. Pepperill. So mind, Jan, not a word about Mr. Quarm. Understand, not a word. So look cheerful and whistle.”

“What shall I whistle? Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’?”

“Of course not, something lively. The ‘Green Bushes.’”

“Why the ‘Green Bushes’?”

“Oh, silly Jan!” Then she began to sing’

“Green bushes’that is the orchard, Jan, where grow the silver peninks.”

“Drat that fly!” exclaimed Jan, flicking with his whip. “Her’s at it again.”