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Updated: September 18, 2025
"What!" exclaimed Mr. farm-bailiff Bräsig that was the way he liked to be addressed "is it possible that there is such insummate folly in the world? Lina, you are the eldest and ought to have been wiser; and, Mina, don't cry any more, you are my little god-child, and so I'll give you a new jar at the summer-fair. And now get away with you into the house."
But so far from trying to cure himself of his indolence about daily drudgery, he found a new and pleasant excitement in thwarting the farm-bailiff at every turn. It would not sound dignified to say that the farm-bailiff took pleasure in thwarting John Broom. But he certainly did not show his satisfaction when the boy did do his work properly.
No Scotchman is insensible to gallantry. And courage is the only thing a "canny" Scot can bear to see expended without return. "John Broom," screamed Miss Betty, "come down! I order, I command you to come down." The farm-bailiff drew his speckled hat forward to shade his upward gaze, and folded his arms. "Dinna call on him, leddies," he said, speaking more quickly than usual.
Twenty minutes of "Haste to the Wedding" are warranted to exhaust the stoutest leg-muscles. My mother always led off with the farm-bailiff as partner, my father at the other end dancing with the bailiff's wife. Both my father, and my brother after him, were very careful always to wear their Garter as well as their other Orders on these occasions, in order to show respect to their guests.
There, by the low and cosy fireplace, with its tiled hearth, stood the capacious crimson morocco chair, in which the master of the Abbey House had been wont to sit when he held audience with his kennel-huntsman, or gamekeeper, his farm-bailiff, or stud-groom. "Mamma, I should like you to lock the door of this room and keep the key, so that no one may ever come here," said Vixen.
It might be a difficult matter to decide which he liked best, beer or John Broom. But next to these he liked Thomasina's stories. Thomasina was kind to him. With all his failings and the dirt on his boots, she liked him better than the farm-bailiff.
"That it's all up with me. All the goods that I possessed were sold by auction the day before yesterday, and yesterday morning" here he turned away to the window "I buried my wife." "What? what?" cried the kind-hearted old farm-bailiff, "good God! your wife. Your dear little wife?" and the tears ran down his red face. "Dear old friend, tell me how it all happened."
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.
He had nothing to do, no interest in life; letters from architect and builder, farm-bailiff and steward, were only a bore to him; he was too listless even to answer them promptly, but let them lie unattended to for a week at a time.
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.
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