“The li’l bwoy?”
“Aye; if us hadn’t nothin’ but him, theer’s many would envy our lot.”
“Childer’s no such gert blessin’, neither.”
“Will! How can you say it?”
“I do say it. We ’m awnly used to keep up the breed, then thrawed o’ wan side. I’m sick o’ men an’ women folks. Theer’s too many of ’em.”
“But childer—our li’l Will. The moosic of un be sweeter than song o’ birds all times, an’ you’d be fust to say so if you wasn’t out of yourself.”
“He ’m a braave, small lad enough; but theer again! Why should he have been pitched into this here home? He might have been put in a palace just as easy, an’ born of a royal queen mother, ’stead o’ you; he might have opened his eyes ’pon marble walls an’ jewels an’ precious stones, ’stead of whitewash an’ a peat fire. Be that baaby gwaine to thank us for bringing him in the world, come he graw up? Not him! Why should he?”
“But he will. We ’m his faither an’ mother. Do ’e love your mother less for bearin’ you in a gypsy van? Li’l Will’s to pay us noble for all our toil some day, an’ be a joy to our grey hairs an’ a prop to our auld age, please God.”
“Ha, ha!—story-books! Gi’ me a cup o’ milk; then us’ll go to bed.”
She obeyed; he piled turf upon the hearth, to keep the fire alight until morning, then took up the candle and followed Phoebe through another chamber, half-scullery, half-storehouse, into which descended the staircase from above. Here hung the pale carcase of a newly slain pig, suspended by its hind legs from a loop in the ceiling; and Phoebe, many of whose little delicacies of manner had vanished of late, patted the carcase lovingly, like the good farmer’s wife she was.