Then I went in to my Pretty and I told her all about it, for she knew nothin' but that Jarvis was aboard; and when I'd told 'er, she said, 'I couldn't 'a' done it, no, not for a kingdom.'
'No more couldn't I,' ses I. 'Father's a better chap nor you and me, my Pretty.'
Presently my old man come back from the town, and he goes down to the bunk where Bill Jarvis is lying, and 'e says, 'Look 'ere, Bill,' says 'e, 'you didn't kill your man last night, and after all, it was in a fair rough-and-tumble. The man's doing well. You take my tip and go back and give yourself up; they won't be 'ard on you.'
And Bill 'e looked at 'im all of a tremble. 'By God,' says 'e, 'you're a good man!'
'It's more than you are, then, you devil,' says Tom. 'Get along, out of my sight,' says 'e, 'before I think better of it.'
And that soldier was off that barge before you could say 'knife,' and we didn't see no more of 'im.
But we was up at Hamsted Lock the next summer. The baby was beginnin' to toddle about now; we'd called her Bessie for me. She and her mother was a-settin' in the meadow pickin' the daisies, when I see a soldier a-comin' along the meadow-path, and if it wasn't that Bill Jarvis again. He stopped short when he saw my Pretty.
'Well, Mary?' says 'e.
'Well, Bill?' says she.
'Is that my kid?' says 'e.