"Ye're a bauld chiel, John Broom, I'll say that for ye."



INTO THE MIST.


Unfortunately the favourable impression produced by "the gipsy lad's"
daring soon passed from the farm-bailiff's mind. It was partly effaced
by the old jealousy of the little ladies favour. Miss Betty gave the boy
no less than four silver shillings, and he ungraciously refused to let
the farm-bailiff place them in a savings bank for him.

Matters got from bad to worse. The farming man was not the only one who
was jealous, and John Broom himself was as idle and restless as ever.
Though, if he had listened respectfully to the Scotchman's counsel, or
shown any disposition to look up to and be guided by him, much might
have been overlooked. But he made fun of him and made a friend of the
cowherd. And this latter most manifest token of low breeding vexed the
respectable taste of the farm-bailiff.

John Broom had his own grievances too, and he brooded over them. He
thought the little ladies had given him over to the farm-bailiff,
because they had ceased to care for him, and that the farm-bailiff was
prejudiced against him beyond any hope of propitiation. The village folk
taunted him, too, with being an outcast, and called him Gipsy John, and
this maddened him. Then he would creep into the cowhouse and lie in the
straw against the white cow's warm back, and for a few of Miss Betty's
coppers, to spend in beer or tobacco, the cowherd would hide him from
the farm-bailiff and tell him countryside tales. To Thomasina's stories