She sat swinging her small legs to and fro, looking down upon him with bright interested eyes.
"I wish," she said slowly, "that you would have a sweet little cottage of your own, Tom, with some nice little children, then you could ask me to tea. I should love to come."
Tom laughed. He took out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco from a greasy tin box in his pocket.
"Cottages and children cost money," he said. "I'm stony broke."
"But you could work for money, couldn't you? And give up drinking beer, that costs a lot of money."
"Ah," said Tom, "this 'ere pipe and a mug o' beer be better company than anybody else. The women and children be only a burden."
"I didn't say anything about women," said Harebell; "but I s'pose you'd have to have a wife to mind the children when you went to work."
Tom looked at her with twinkling eyes. Then his mood changed. He clenched one on his fists.
"Little missy, I'd give this 'ere right hand o' mine to be quit o' the drink sometimes. There was a lass once who loved me. She and me had set our hearts on that there cottage top o' village agen the old oak. We was for havin' our banns cried, an' I were so dazed wi' the luck in front o' me, I went and drunk more'n a man ought, and then visited my maid, afore the stuff had worked itself out o' me. She were one o' the Maxworthy stock, and held her head high, an' she sent me off, and would have none o' me. So that sent me to the devil!"
"Oh," interrupted Harebell, "I'm sure you didn't go to him. He doesn't live in this world, you know."