ger--I'd like to hear what _you_ have to say to
this!"

"'Tis a pretty old cauch, sure 'nough," allowed Mr Sam Nicholls, pushing
up the brim of his hat on one side and scratching his head while his eye
travelled along the furrows. "Cruel!"

"And you permitted it! You, that might be supposed to have _some_
knowledge o' farmin'!"

"Why, to be sure, ma'am," interposed Mr Widger, "we never reckoned as
'twould be so bad as all this. . . . Young Bill Crago came to us with
word as how these--these two gentlemen--had made a match, and he asked
us to do the judgin' same as for the classes 'pon the bills--"

"And so you started them? And then, I suppose, you couldn't stop for
laughin'?"

"Something like that, ma'am, _as_ you say," Mr Widger confessed.

"And what sort o' speech will you make, down to County Council, when I
send in my bill for damages?--you that complained to me, only this
mornin', how the rates were goin' up by leaps and bounds! . . . As for
these gentlemen," said Mrs Bosenna, turning on Cai and 'Bias with just a
twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "I shall be at home to-morrow morning
if they choose to call and make me an offer--unless, o' course, they
prefer to do so by letter."

At this, Dinah put up her hand suddenly to cover her mouth. But Cai and
'Bias were in no state of mind to catch the double innuendo.

Having thus reduced the judges to contrition, and having proceeded to
call forward the local secretary and to extort from him a long and
painful apology, Mrs Bosenna wound up with a threat to bundle the whole
Demonstration out of her field if she heard of any further nonsense,
and, taking Dinah's arm, sailed off (so to speak) with all the trophies
of war.

Cai and 'Bias walked away shamefacedly to seek out their bottleholders
and collect each his hat, coat, and waistcoat.

"But which of ee's won?" demanded their backers.

"_Damn_ who's won!" was 'Bias's answer; and he looked too dangerous to
be pressed further.

A wager is a wager, however; and the judges' decision was clamoured for,
with threats that, until it was given, the Agricultural Demonstration
would not be suffered to proceed. Mr Sam Nicholls consulted hastily
with Mr Widger, and announced the award as follows:--

"We consider Captain Hunken's ploughin' to be the very worst ploughin'
we've ever seen. But we award him the prize all the same, because we
don't consider Captain Hocken's ploughin' to be any ploughin' at all."

_So