yonder,” he jerked his thumb at Hetty.  “She’s the pick.  My word, and you are a beauty, bridling to yourself there, and thinking dirt of me.  Go on, I like you for it:  you can’t show too much spirit for William Wright.”  Molly’s hand closed over Hetty’s two, clasped and lying in her lap:  Hetty sat motionless as a statue.  “If only your father would trade you off against an honest debt—­But you’re gentry:  I knows the sort.  Well, well, ’tis a long tramp back to Owston:  so here’s wishing you good night, missies all.  If I take back no money, and no pay but a pint of sour cider, I’ve seen the prettiest picter in all Lincolnshire; so we’ll count it a holiday.”

He was gone.  With the dropping of the sun a chilly shadow had fallen on the mound, and for some moments the sisters remained motionless, agonised, each in her own way distraught.

“The brute!” said Kezzy at length, drawing a long breath.

Hetty rose deliberately.  “Child,” she said, and her voice was hard, “don’t be a goose!  The poor creature came for his money.  He had the right to insult us.”

She smoothed the dew from her skirt and walked swiftly down the slope.

At the foot of it Johnny Whitelamb had risen and was holding his drawing aslant, in some hope, perhaps, that the angle might correct the perspective of old Mettle’s portrait.  Certainly it was a villainous portrait, as he acknowledged to himself with a sigh.  Parts of it must be rubbed out, and his right hand rummaged in his pocket and found a crust.  But Johnny, among other afflictions, suffered from an unconscionable appetite.  While he doubted where to begin, his teeth met in the bread, and he started guiltily, for it was more than half eaten when Hetty swooped down on him.

“Quick, Johnny! run you to the woodstack while I unpack the baskets.  Mother will be arriving in an hour, and we are to give her supper out here, with baked potatoes.  Run, that’s a good soul:  and on your way get Jane to give you a tin of oatmeal—­tell her I must have it if she has to scrape the bottom of the bin; and a gridiron, and a rolling-pin.  We will have griddle-cakes.  Run—­and whatever you do, don’t forget the rolling-pin!”

Johnny ran with long ungainly strides, his coat-tails flapping like a scarecrow’s.  The coat, in fact, was a cast-off one of Mr. Wesley’s, narrow in the chest, short in the sleeves, but inordinately full in the skirts.  The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his great work, the Dissertationes in Librum Jobi, and in return the lad found board and lodging and picked up what scraps he could of Greek and Latin.  He wrote a neat hand and transcribed carefully; his drawings were atrocious, and he never attempted a woodcut without gashing himself.  But he kept a humble heart, and for all the family a devotion almost canine.  To him the Rector, with his shovel-hat and stores