Part 23 (1/2)

'Just a glimpse of him; but 'twas just enough to show me that he's not here for long.'

'Why mid that be?'

'He'll never stand the vagaries of the female figure holden the reins--not he.'

'She d' pay en well,' said a grinder; 'and money's money.'

'Ah--'tis: very much so,' the clerk replied.

'Yes, yes, naibour Crickett,' said Springrove, 'but she'll vlee in a pa.s.sion--all the fat will be in the fire--and there's an end o't....

Yes, she is a one,' continued the farmer, resting, raising his eyes, and reading the features of a distant apple.

'She is,' said Gad, resting too (it is wonderful how prompt a journeyman is in following his master's initiative to rest) and reflectively regarding the ground in front of him.

'True: a one is she,' the clerk chimed in, shaking his head ominously.

'She has such a temper,' said the farmer, 'and is so wilful too. You may as well try to stop a footpath as stop her when she has taken anything into her head. I'd as soon grind little green crabs all day as live wi'

her.'

''Tis a temper she hev, 'tis,' the clerk replied, 'though I be a servant of the Church that say it. But she isn't goen to flee in a pa.s.sion this time.'

The audience waited for the continuation of the speech, as if they knew from experience the exact distance off it lay in the future.

The clerk swallowed nothing as if it were a great deal, and then went on, 'There's some'at between 'em: mark my words, naibours--there's some'at between 'em.'

'D'ye mean it?'

'I d' know it. He came last Sat.u.r.day, didn't he?'

''A did, truly,' said Gad Weedy, at the same time taking an apple from the hopper of the mill, eating a piece, and flinging back the remainder to be ground up for cider.

'He went to church a-Sunday,' said the clerk again.

''A did.'

'And she kept her eye upon en all the service, her face flickeren between red and white, but never stoppen at either.'

Mr. Springrove nodded, and went to the press.

'Well,' said the clerk, 'you don't call her the kind o' woman to make mistakes in just trotten through the weekly service o' G.o.d? Why, as a rule she's as right as I be myself.'

Mr. Springrove nodded again, and gave a twist to the screw of the press, followed in the movement by Gad at the other side; the two grinders expressing by looks of the greatest concern that, if Miss Aldclyffe were as right at church as the clerk, she must be right indeed.

'Yes, as right in the service o' G.o.d as I be myself,' repeated the clerk. 'But last Sunday, when we were in the tenth commandment, says she, ”Incline our hearts to keep this law,” says she, when 'twas ”Laws in our hearts, we beseech Thee,” all the church through. Her eye was upon _him_--she was quite lost--”Hearts to keep this law,” says she; she was no more than a mere shadder at that tenth time--a mere shadder. You mi't ha' mouthed across to her ”Laws in our hearts we beseech Thee,”

fifty times over--she'd never ha' noticed ye. She's in love wi' the man, that's what she is.'

'Then she's a bigger stunpoll than I took her for,' said Mr. Springrove.

'Why, she's old enough to be his mother.'

'The row'll be between her and that young Curlywig, you'll see. She won't run the risk of that pretty face be-en near.'