"We'll all be rich before we die yet." "Depends when we die," growled Tom--in which observation--obvious as it was--there was undoubtedly much truth.

And then, his little suggestion of provocation having broken like ripples on Gard's imperturbability, he turned on Peter and tried to stir him up.
"You don't get on any too fast with your making up to la garche, mon gars," he said in the patois again.
"Aw--Tom!" remonstrated Peter, very red in the face at this ruthless laying bare of his approaches.
"Get ahead, man! Put your arm round her neck and give her a kiss.

That's the way to fetch 'em." At which Nance jumped up with fiery face and sparks in her eyes and left the room, and Gard, who understood no word of what had passed, yet understood without possibility of doubt that Tom's speech had been mortally offensive to his sister, and set him down in his own mind as of low esteem and boorish disposition.
As for Peter, to whom such advice was as useless as the act would have been impossible at that stage of the proceedings, he was almost as much upset as Nance herself.

He got up with a shamefaced-- "Aw, Tom, boy, that was not good of you," and made for his hat, while Tom sat with a broad grin at the result of his delicate diplomacy, and Gard's great regret was that it was not possible for him to take the hulking fellow by the neck and bundle him out of doors.
Old Tom made some sharp remark to his son, who replied in kind; Mrs.
Hamon sat quietly aloof, as she always did when Tom and his father got to words, and Bernel made play with his supper, as though such matters were of too common occurrence to call for any special attention on his part.
Then Nance's face framed in a black sun-bonnet gleamed in at the outer door.
"Come along, Bern, and we'll go and tell the Seigneur where his white horse is," and she disappeared, and Bernel, having polished off everything within reach, got up and followed her.
"Will you please to take a look at the mines to-night ?" asked old Tom of his guest, anxious to interest him in the work as speedily as possible.
"We might take a bit of a walk, and you can tell me all you will about things.

But I don't take hold till the first of the month, and I don't want to interfere until I have a right to.