This dialogue, being held in the kitchen, gave the women some amusement at the young farmer's expense.
One day Mr. Richard Bassett, from motives of pure affection no doubt, not curiosity, desired mightily to inspect Mr. Bassett, aged eight months and two days.
So, in his usual wily way, he wrote to Mrs. Gosport, asking her, for old acquaintance' sake, to meet him in the meadow at the end of the lawn. This meadow belonged to Sir Charles, but Richard Bassett had a right of way through it, and could step into it by a postern, as Mary could by an iron gate.
He asked her to come at eleven o'clock, because at that hour he observed she walked on the lawn with her charge.
Mary Gosport came to the tryst, but without Mr. Bassett.
Richard was very polite; she cold, taciturn, observant.
At last he said, “But where's the little heir?”
She flew at him directly. “It is him you wanted, not me. Did you think I'd bring him here—for you to kill him?”
“Come, I say.”
“Ay, you'd kill him if you had a chance. But you never shall. Or if you didn't kill him, you'd cast the evil-eye on him, for you are well known to have the evil-eye. No; he shall outlive thee and thine, and be lord of these here manors when thou is gone to hell, thou villain.”