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“They do say that you be goin’ to keep a bwoy, shepherd,” remarked the ploughman a little later, gazing at him with respectful admiration.

“Very like I be,” returned Abel loftily. He was not proud, but thoroughly aware of his own importance.

One of the other men, the father of a family, humbly mentioned that he had a fine well-grown lad at home that would, maybe, suit Mr. Robbins as well as another, and Abel graciously promised to think of it.

He went home thoroughly convinced that a piece of most unexpected good luck had befallen him, an opinion which was shared by all his neighbours. As for Mr. and Mrs. Joyce they kept their own counsel.

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The November landscape was sombre and melancholy enough; brown, newly-ploughed fields alternating for the most part with the tawny stubble of land that still lay fallow. A few withered leaves clung to the branches of trees and hedges; the sky was grey, the air heavy and yet cold. It was a fit day to hear news of trouble, Mrs. Frizzell thought, as her eyes roamed over the prospect, not vaguely as another woman’s might have done, but with a definite object in view.