One August evening they were in the garden; there had been several hot, clear days, and the harvesters were making the most of every hour.  The squire had been in the field until near sunset, and now he was watching anxiously for the last wain.  “We have the earliest shearing in Sandal-Side,” he said.  “The sickle has not been in the upper meadows yet, and if they finish to-night it will be a good thing.  It’s a fine moon for work. A fine moon, God bless her! Hark!  There is the song I have been waiting for, and all’s well, Charlotte.”  And they stood still to listen to the rumble of the wagon, and the rude, hearty chant that at intervals accompanied it:—­

“Blest be the day that Christ was born! 
The last sheaf of Sandal corn
Is well bound, and better shorn. 

                  Hip, hip, hurrah!”

“Good-evening, squire.”  The speaker had come quickly around one of the garden hedges, and his voice seemed to fall out of mid-air.  Charlotte turned, with eyes full of light, and a flush of color that made her exceedingly handsome.

“Well-a-mercy!  Good-evening, Stephen.  When did you get home?  Nobody had heard tell.  Eh?  What?”

“I came this afternoon, squire; and as there is a favor you can do us, I thought I would ask it at once.”

“Surely, Stephen.  What can I do?  Eh?  What?”

“I hear your harvest is home.  Can you spare us a couple of men?  The wheat in Low Barra fields is ready for the sickle.”

“Three men, four, if you want them.  You cannot have too many sickles.  Cut wheat while the sun shines.  Eh?  What?  How is the lady at Up-Hill?”

“Mother is middling well, I’m obliged to you.  I think she has failed though, since grandfather died.”

“It is likely.  She has been too much by herself.  You should stay at home, Stephen Latrigg.  A man’s duty is more often there than anywhere else.  Eh?”

“I think you are right now, squire.”  And then he blundered into the very statement that he ought to have let alone.  “And I am not going to build the mill, squire,—­not yet, at least.  I would not do any thing to annoy you for the world.”

The information was pleasant to Sandal; but he had already heard it, in its least offensive way, through Ducie and Charlotte.  Steve’s broad relinquishment demanded some acknowledgment, and appeared to put him under an obligation which he did not feel he had any right to acknowledge.  He considered the building of a mill so near his own property a great social wrong, and why should he thank Stephen Latrigg for not committing it?