“Don’t ye let me down so, father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin after it.  I’ve made but a bruckle hit, I’m afeard.”

“Come, come.  Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian; you should try more,” said Fairway.

“Yes, you should try more,” echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as if he had been the first to make the suggestion.  “In common conscience every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier.  ’Tis a scandal to the nation to do neither one nor t’other.  I did both, thank God!  Neither to raise men nor to lay ’em low—­that shows a poor do-nothing spirit indeed.”

“I never had the nerve to stand fire,” faltered Christian.  “But as to marrying, I own I’ve asked here and there, though without much fruit from it.  Yes, there’s some house or other that might have had a man for a master—­such as he is—­that’s now ruled by a woman alone.  Still it might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d’ye see, neighbours, there’d have been nobody left at home to keep down father’s spirits to the decent pitch that becomes a old man.”

“And you’ve your work cut out to do that, my son,” said Grandfer Cantle smartly.  “I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so strong in me!—­I’d start the very first thing tomorrow to see the world over again!  But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for a rover...  Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday.  Gad, I’d sooner have it in guineas than in years!” And the old man sighed.

“Don’t you be mournful, Grandfer,” said Fairway.  “Empt some more feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart.  Though rather lean in the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still.  There’s time enough left to ye yet to fill whole chronicles.”

“Begad, I’ll go to ’em, Timothy—­to the married pair!” said Granfer Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly.  “I’ll go to ’em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey?  ’Tis like me to do so, you know; and they’d see it as such.  My ‘Down in Cupid’s Gardens’ was well liked in four; still, I’ve got others as good, and even better.  What do you say to my

      She cal’-led to’ her love’
      From the lat’-tice a-bove,
   ‘O come in’ from the fog’-gy fog’-gy dew’.’

“’Twould please ’em well at such a time!  Really, now I come to think of it, I haven’t turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the ‘Barley Mow’ at the Woman; and ’tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there’s few that have the compass for such things!”

“So ’tis, so ’tis,” said Fairway.  “Now gie the bed a shake down.  We’ve put in seventy pound of best feathers, and I think that’s as many as the tick will fairly hold.  A bit and a drap wouldn’t be amiss now, I reckon.  Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard if canst reach, man, and I’ll draw a drap o’ sommat to wet it with.”

They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around, above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity of their old clothes.