Allan walked on quickly. A woman in moments of mental stress can find relief in tears, a man more usually in violent movement.
He was a little shaken, a little unnerved, greatly surprised at himself. Why had he done that, why had his heart leaped suddenly at the touch of her soft cheek on his hand, why had he—done what he had done? Yet, having done it, regretted nothing. It seemed to him that from that moment Kathleen held a new interest for him. He had regarded her as friend and companion—from this moment on he knew that she meant more than this to him.
Farmer John Patcham received him courteously, with a deference and respect that had nothing whatever of servility about it.
"’Tis a fine marning," he said, "and I be just going to have my usual lunch, Mr. Homewood, a very plain and simple lunch it be, just a glass of ale and a plum-heavy, very partial I be to plum-heavies and there’s no one in all Sussex makes ’em better than my wife, so if you’ll join me——"
Allan did. They sat in the somewhat stuffy little parlour, the window of which remained hermetically sealed, summer and winter, and drank good brown beer and ate those Sussex cakes that for some reason have never achieved the fame of the cakes of Banbury or the Buns of Bath.
And over their cakes and ale they talked and Allan surprised the farmer somewhat by the depth and advancement of his knowledge.
"You been getting your head laid alongside old Custance now I’ll be bound," he said, "wunnerful advanced man Custance be, as sets great store on book larning to be sure. But if so be you be minded to try hop raising in this part of Sussex, Mr. Homewood, I say give it up! ’Tis the soil, sir, ’tis the soil! Hops be all right for Kent and the Midlands, but—" and so on and so on, from hops to manures, chemical and otherwise, to tithes and land taxes, to red cows and brindled cows and the swine of Berkshire and of Yorkshire, on all of which subjects Mr. Patcham laid down the law and smote the rickety round table with a heavy hand, to drive his points home.
"Flints," said Patcham, "flints be the cussedest things, wunnerful how flints du crop up. Clean a field, pick it, hand-pick it of flints, clear out every flint there du be and in three months what du ’ee find? Flints, sir, bushels of ’em, tons of ’em! In some counties it du be fuzz and Sussex has its share of fuzz, come to that, but flints—I were but saying to Abram last Saturday—no, ’twere Friday——"