“At his time of life! What Justice would give ear to un? An’ the shame of it!”
“Perhaps he misunderstood. You men jump so at a conclusion.”
“Leave that to me. I’ll clear his brains double-quick; aye, an’ make un jump for somethin’!”
“Then I suppose it’s got to be. I’m yourn, Billy, an’ theer needn’t be any long waitin’ neither. To think of another weddin’ an’ another husband! Just a drop or I shall cry. It’s such a supporting thing to a lone female.”
Whether Mrs. Coomstock meant marriage or Plymouth gin, Billy did not stop to inquire. He helped her, filled Lezzard’s empty glass for himself, and then, finding his future wife thick of speech, bleared of eye, and evidently disposed to slumber, he departed and left her to sleep off her varied emotions.
“I’ll mighty soon change all that,” thought Mr. Blee. “To note a fine woman in liquor ’s the frightfullest sight in all nature, so to say. Not but what with Lezzard a-pawin’ of her ’t was enough to drive her to it.”
That night the lover announced his triumph, whereon Phoebe congratulated him and Miller Lyddon shook his head.
“’T is an awful experiment, Billy, at your age,” he declared.
“Why, so ’t is; but I’ve weighed the subject in my mind for years and years, an ’t wasn’t till Mary Coomstock comed to be widowed that I thought I’d found the woman at last. ’T was lookin’ tremendous high, I knaw, but theer ’t is; she’ll have me. She ’m no young giglet neither, as would lead me a devil’s dance, but a pusson in full blooth with ripe mind.”
“She drinks. I doan’t want to hurt your feelings; but everybody says it is so,” declared the miller.