sir, not well. I’ve dried this piece by the kitchen fire, and I find it’ll take the paint for a time.”
“Run, dry all the panels at the kitchen fire, and then paint ’em.”
“Thanky’, sir; but, how about the boarding of the floor? The boards’ll warp and start.”
“Look here, Davy, that gentleman who’s at the winder a-smelling to the jessamine is the surveyor and valuer to t’other party. I fancy you’d best go round outside and have a word with him and coax him to pass the boards.”
“Come in!” in a loud voice. Then there entered a man in a cloth coat, with very bushy whiskers. “How d’y’ do, Spargo? What do you want?”
“Well, Mr. Scantlebray, I understand the linney and cow-shed is to be pulled down.”
“So it is, Spargo.”
“Well, sir!” Mr. Spargo drew his sleeve across his mouth. “There’s a lot of very fine oak timber in it – beams, and such like – that I don’t mind buying. As a timber merchant I could find a use for it.”
“Say ten pound.”
“Ten pun’! That’s a long figure!”
“Not a pound too much; but come – we’ll say eight.”
“I reckon I’d thought five.”
“Five! pshaw! It’s dirt cheap to you at eight.”
“Why to me, sir?”
“Why, because the new rector will want to rebuild both cattle-shed and linney, and he’ll have to go to you for timber.”
“But suppose he don’t, and cuts down some on the glebe?”
“No, Spargo – not a bit. There at the winder, smelling to the jessamine, is the new rector’s adviser and agent. Go round by the front door into the garding, and say a word to him – you understand, and – ” Mr. Scantlebray tapped his palm. “Do now go round and have a sniff of the jessamine, Mr. Spargo, and I don’t fancy Mr. Cargreen will advise the rector to use home-grown timber. He’ll tell him it sleeps away, gets the rot, comes more expensive in the long run.”
The valuer took a wing of chicken and a little ham, and then shouted, with his mouth full – “Come in!”
The door opened and admitted a farmer.
“How do, Mr. Joshua? middlin’?”
“Middlin’, sir, thanky’.”
“And what have you come about, sir?”
“Well – Mr. Scantlebray, sir! I fancy you ha’n’t offered me quite enough for carting away of all the rummage from them buildings as is coming down. ’Tis a terrible lot of stone, and I’m to take ’em so far away.”
“Why not?”
“Well, sir, it’s such a lot of work for the bosses, and the pay so poor.”
“Not a morsel, Joshua – not a morsel.”
“Well, sir, I can’t do it at the price.”
“Oh, Joshua! Joshua! I thought you’d a better eye to the future. Don’t you see that the new rector will have to build up all these out-buildings again, and where else is he to get stone except out of your quarry, or some of the old stone you have carted away, which you will have the labor of carting back?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know.”
“But I do, Joshua.”
“The new rector might go elsewhere for stone.”
“Not he. Look there, at the winder is Mr. Cargreen, and he’s in with the new parson, like a brother – knows his very soul. The new parson comes from Birmingham. What can he tell about building-stone here? Mr. Cargreen will tell him yours is the only stuff that ain’t powder.”
“But, sir, he may not rebuild.”
“He must. Mr. Cargreen will tell him that he can’t let the glebe without buildings; and he can’t build without your quarry stone: and if he has your quarry stone – why, you will be given the carting also. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes – if Mr. Cargreen would be sure – ”
“He’s there at the winder, a-smelling to the jessamine. You go round and have a talk to him, and make him understand – you know. He’s a little hard o’ hearing; but the drum o’ his ear is here,” said Scantlebray, tapping his palm.
Mr. Scantlebray was now left to himself to discuss the chicken wing – the liver wing he had taken – and sip the port; a conversation was going on in an undertone at the window; but that concerned Mr. Cargreen and not himself, so he paid no attention to it.
After a while, however, when this hum ceased, he turned his head, and called out:
“Old man! how about your lunch?”
“I’m coming.”
“And you found the jessamine very sweet?”
“Beautiful! beautiful!”
“Taste this port. It is not what it should be: some the old fellow laid in when he could afford it – before he married. It is passed, and going back; should have been drunk five years ago.”
Mr. Cargreen came to the table, and seated himself. Then Mr. Scantlebray flapped his arms, shook out his legs, and settled himself to the enjoyment of the lunch, in the society of Mr. Cargreen.
“The merry-thought! Pull with me, old man?”
“Certainly!”
Mr. Scantlebray and Mr. Cargreen were engaged on the merry-thought, each endeavoring to steal an advantage on the other, by working the fingers up the bone unduly, when the window was darkened.
Without desisting from pulling at the merry-thought each turned his head, and Scantlebray at once let go his end of the bone. At the window stood Captain Coppinger looking in at the couple, with his elbow resting on the window-sill.
Mr. Scantlebray flattered himself that he was on good terms with all the world, and he at once with hilarity saluted the Captain by raising the fingers greased by the bone to his brow.
“Didn’t reckon on seeing you here, Cap’n.”
“I suppose not.”
“Come and pick a bone with us?”
Coppinger laughed a short snort through his nostrils.
“I have a bone to pick with you already.”
“Never! no, never!”
“You have forced yourself on Miss Trevisa to act as her agent and valuer in the matter of dilapidations.”
“Not forced, Captain. She asked me to give her friendly counsel. We are old acquaintances.”
