“Keep it up, old man,” came Casey’s rasping tones up the path, followed by a brutal laugh.
Jerry faced about towards him once more, and Lucy disappeared round the corner. She had no heart for the post-mistress then, and indeed she half guessed that that inquisitive woman had witnessed the scene on the green through the window-frame behind which she dispensed postal conveniences and morality to the village; it was bad enough to face Miss Hearn when she had no special reason to crow over one—it was impossible when she had.
Lucy was quite right. Miss Hearn had seen and heard everything, and was discussing it now with the doctor’s housekeeper, who had come in to send a postal order to her son.
“Poor soul!” the latter was saying in kindly commiserating tones, “I feel right down sorry for ’er, I do! A-slavin’ and a-killin’ of ’erself workin’ for that good-for-nothin’ lazy-bones! And a confinement thrown in most Christmas-times. Why, there’s been one every year since they was wed, to my certain knowledge—and there couldn’t be no more.”
“Since they was what?” repeated Miss Hearn, pursing her lips and wagging her head till the long, sleek ringlets on either side of her round, furrowed face shook sorrowfully.
“Well, they was wed, though it might ha’ been sooner,” said the other, blushing a little, but smiling a little too; “there was only one of ’em born out o’ wedlock after all.”
“Ain’t one enough?” retorted the post-office lady distantly. “I scarce call it a wedding myself—when it ain’t at the right time. If that sort o’ thing weren’t made light of among ye, it wouldn’t ’appen. It ought not to be tolerated. It’s a disgrace to the parish.”
“Well, Lucy was looked askance at at first,” answered the other, who, as the doctor’s right hand for many a year, considered herself competent to argue a question even with the post-office mistress. “I allers passed her by on the other side o’ the road myself. But ye must allow she did make ’im marry ’er, and virtue ’ave got to be rewarded, ’aven’t it? Else it ain’t no good a-practisin’ of it.”
“Virtue!” sniffed Miss Hearn. “A tardy reparation don’t wipe out sin.”
“Oh, I ain’t a-goin’ to defend sin,” said the elder woman hastily. “And o’ course Lucy ’adn’t no business to go runnin’ along dark lanes wi’ the man on moonlight nights! But there, the gal did what she could to make up—for you won’t go for to deny it wanted a bit o’ pluck to tie ’erself up to ’im! Why, it’s my belief, ’e beat ’er when ’e was drunk afore they was so much as wed—not to say nothink o’ goin’s on with them gals at the ’Arbour.”