“Them two takes after your family, mother, an’ no mistake. Yet I hope they won’t turn gaol-birds, or else weak in their intellects.”
The woman felt the tears in her weary eyes. She wiped them away, and turned in bed.
“They’m as God made ’em, master; please Him they’ll be better friends come Davey grows up. But what must us do?”
“Do? Nought.”
“Surely you’ve got your son’s good at heart? Think what ’tis for Dick to see that wicked girl coolin’, coolin’, by inches. Gall for him, poor dear.”
But the man only laughed sleepily. “Strongest wins in this world. If Richard ban’t stout enough to keep his woman by his own arts, us can’t help him.”
“You might send this young chap ’bout his business.”
“An’ fling away two pound a week? No, fay! Girls is easier picked up than two pound a week. Let Dick do what’s in him. He ban’t ’feard of that slack-twisted, yellow-haired chap, be he? Let him show the maiden which is the better man, an’ not come bleating to his mother, like a hungry lamb to a ewe.”
“He never comed hisself.”
“Well, what’s to hinder him from using his fistes? Nought brings a man down in a girl’s eyes like a good hiding. Let ’em settle it same way as the tomcats do.”