“Seems to me it’s going to be a blame nuisance,” growled Ned Gunliffe.
“Give ’er a chawnce, mates,” said Jack Ever. “She may be all right, an’ anyways she’s a woman. There’s plenty places where the men ’ud give their ears to have a woman round all the time.”
“They’re some as could give longer ears—an’ that’s asses,” said Ned.
“Hush, children,” said Aleck Gault, reprovingly. “I’m afraid, Steve, our Happy Home is to be broken with strife and dissension. Just the bare word of a woman, you see, and the quarrels break out.”
“Paradise invaded,” scoffed Steve Knight. “Look at the Paradise around you, and glance at us, the angels who fear a woman will disturb us.”
“It’ll please you, I suppose, Fly-by-Night. Save you some moonlight trips if you’ve a girl to spark right at home here,” said Ned Gunliffe.
“You’re right, Ned,” said Knight, good-humouredly. “First thing I want to know is whether she can sew and darn. If she can, I’m going to spend all my spare time courting her while she sews patches on my breeches and darns my socks.”
“Why not marry her an’ done with it while you’re at it?” said Gunliffe. “You’d only have to ask ’er you know. Was there ever a woman yet could resist Fly-by-Night when he rode up a-courting?” He spoke with a hint of a sneer in his tones, and, remembering an old tale of an episode in which Knight and he and a girl had been concerned, the men guessed at a hidden edge to the words. But if there was, Steve Knight ignored it.
“No chance, Ned,” he said lightly. “You see, my trouble with the girls is that the good ’uns find me out, and the bad ’uns I find out, and, either way, marryin’ is off.”
“Couldn’t ye choose a middlin’ one?” said Whip Thompson, banteringly.