House. She astounded John Bolland by the accuracy of her knowledge concerning stock, and annoyed him, too, by remarking that some of his land required draining.
“Your lower pastures are too rank,” she said. “So long as there is a succession of fine seasons it does not matter, but a wet spring and summer will trouble you. You will have fifty acres of water-sodden meadows, and nothing breeds disease more quickly.”
“None o’ my cattle hev had a day’s illness, short o’ bein’ a trifle overfed wi’ oil cake,” he said testily.
“Quite so. You told me that in former years you raised wheat and oats there. I’m talking about grass.”
Martin and Angèle became close friends. The only children of the girl’s social rank in the neighborhood were the vicar’s daughter, Elsie Herbert, and the squire’s two sons, Frank and Ernest Beckett-Smythe. Mr. Beckett-Smythe was a widower. He lived at the Hall, three-quarters of a mile away, and had not as yet met Mrs. Saumarez. Angèle would have nothing to do with Elsie.
“I don’t like her,” she confided to Martin. “She doesn’t care for boys, and I adore them. She’s trop reglée for me.”
“What is that?”
“Well, she holds her nose – so.”
Angèle tilted her head and cast down her eyes.
“Of course, I don’t know her, but she seems to be a nice girl,” said Martin.
“Why do you say, ‘Of course, I don’t know her’? She lives here, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, but my father is a farmer. She has a governess, and goes to tea at the Hall. I’ve met her driving from the Castle. She’s above me, you see.”
Angèle laughed maliciously.
“O là là! c’est pour rire! I’m sorry. She is – what do you say – a little snob.”
“No, no,” protested Martin. “I think she would be very nice, if I knew her. You’ll like her fine when you play with her.”
“Me! Play with her, so prim, so pious. I prefer Jim Bates. He winked at me yesterday.”
“Did he? Next time I see him I’ll make it hard for him to wink.”
Angèle clapped her hands and pirouetted.
“What,” she cried, “you will fight him, and for me! What joy! It’s just like a story book. You must kick him, so, and he will fall down, and I will kiss you.”
“I will not kick him,” said the indignant Martin. “Boys don’t kick in England. And I don’t want to be kissed.”
“Don’t boys kiss in England?”
“Well … anyhow, I don’t.”
“Then we are not sweethearts. I shan’t kiss you, and you must just leave Jim Bates alone.”
Martin was humiliated. He remained silent and angry during the next minute. By a quick turn in the conversation Angèle had placed him in a position of rivalry with another boy, one with whom she had not exchanged a word.
“Look here,” he said, after taking thought, “if I kiss your cheek, may I lick Jim Bates?”
This magnanimous offer was received with derision.
“I forbid you to do either. If you do, I’ll tell your father.”
The child had discovered already the fear with which Martin regarded the stern, uncompromising Methodist yeoman – a fear, almost a resentment, due to Bolland’s injudicious attempts to guide a mere boy into the path of serious and precise religion. Never had Martin found the daily reading of Scripture such a burden as during the past few days. The preparations for the feast, the cricket-playing, running and jumping of the boys practicing for prizes – these disturbing influences interfered sadly with the record of David’s declining years.
Even now, with Angèle’s sarcastic laughter ringing in his ears, he was compelled to leave her and hurry to the front kitchen, where the farmer was waiting with the Bible opened. At the back door he paused and looked at her. She blew him a kiss.
“Good boy!” she cried. “Mind you learn your lesson.”
“And mind you keep away from those cowsheds. Your nurse ought to have been here. It’s tea time.”
“I don’t want any tea. I’m going to smell the milk. I love the smell of a farmyard. Don’t you? But, there! You have never smelt anything else. Every place has its own smell. Paris smells like smoky wood. London smells of beer. Here there is always the smell of cows…”
“Martin!” called a harsh voice from the interior, and the boy perforce brought his wandering wits to bear on the wrongdoing of David in taking a census of the people of Israel.
He read steadily through the chapter which described how a pestilence swept from Dan to Beersheba and destroyed seventy thousand men, all because David wished to know how many troops he could muster.
He could hear Angèle talking to the maids and making them laugh. A caravan lumbered through the street; he caught a glimpse of carved wooden horses’ heads and gilded moldings. His quick and retentive brain mastered the words of the chapter, but to-day there was no mysterious and soul-awakening glimpse of its spirit.
“What did David say te t’ Lord when t’ angel smote t’ people?” said Bolland when the moment came to question his pupil.
“He said, ‘Lo, I have sinned; but what have these sheep done?’”
“And what sin had he deän?”
“I don’t know. I think the whole thing was jolly unfair.”
“What!” John Bolland laid down the Bible and rested both hands on the arms of the chair to steady himself. Had he heard aright? Was the boy daring to criticize the written word?
But Martin’s brain raced ahead of the farmer’s slow-rising wrath. He trembled at the abyss into which he had almost fallen. What horror if he lost an hour on this Saturday, the Saturday before the Feast, of all days in the year!
“I didn’t quite mean that,” he said, “but it doesn’t say why it was wrong for a census to be taken, and it does say that when the angel stretched his hand over Jerusalem the Lord repented of the evil.”
Bolland bent again over the book. Yes, Martin was right. He was letter perfect.
“It says nowt about unfairness,” growled the man slowly.
“No. That was my mistake.”
“Ye mun tak’ heed ageän misteäks o’ that sort. On Monday we begin t’ Third Book o’ Kings.”
So, not even the Feast would be allowed to interfere with the daily lesson.
Angèle had departed with the belated Françoise. Martin, running through the orchard like a hare, doubled to the main road along the lane. In two minutes he was watching the unloading of the roundabout in front of the “Black Lion.” Jim Bates was there.
“Here, I want you,” said
