“Well, she’s had paltry food for a lover since he went away. He’s got certain ideas, and she’ll hear direct when—but there, I must shut my mouth, for I swore by fantastic oaths to say nothing.”
“He ought to write, whether or no. You tell Will that Jan Grimbal be about building a braave plaace up under Whiddon, and is looking for a wife at Monks Barton morning, noon, an’ evening. That’s like to waken him. An’ tell him the miller’s on t’other side, and clacking Jan Grimbal into Phoebe’s ear steadier than the noise of his awn water-wheel.”
“And she will grow weak, mark me. She sees that red-brick place rising out of the bare boughs, higher and higher, and knows that from floor to attics all may be hers if she likes to say the word. She hears great talk of drawing-rooms, and pictures, and pianos, and greenhouses full of rare flowers, and all the rest—why, just think of it!”
“Ban’t many gals as could stand ’gainst a piano, I daresay.”
“I only know one—mine.”
Chris looked at him curiously.
“You ’m right. An’ that, for some queer reason, puts me in mind of the other wan, Martin Grimbal. He was very pleasant to me.”
“He’s too late, thank God!”
“Ess, fay! An’ if he’d comed afore ’e, Clem, he’d been tu early. Theer’s awnly wan man in the gert world for me.”
“My gypsy!”