"If Edge was the cleverest man, which, for my part, I won't allow," proceeded Moses, "then who was the cleverest woman, I wonder?"
"My wife," declared Mr. Shillabeer, instantly. "You must be just to the dead, Charles, for they can't defend their characters. But I say that my wife was both the largest and best and cleverest woman that ever comed here; and if anybody doubts it, let 'em give chapter and verse."
"Nobody does doubt it, 'Dumpling,'" said Bartley, in a soothing voice. "There may be a smart female here and there yet, and there may be a clever maiden or two coming on also; but never did any such grand creature as Mrs. Shillabeer appear among us. Mr. Fogo used to tell about her, and how you won her from a regular army of other men."
"True as gospel. There was a good few fighters after her besides me--heavy weights too. She'd never have looked twice at anything less than a fourteen stone man. In fact, to see any male short of thirteen to fourteen stone beside her was a thing to laugh at. 'Twas when I was in training for my fight with the old Tipton--years younger than me he was all the same, that I won her. I was at a little crib out Uxbridge way, and her father had me in hand, and she come out from Saturday to Monday, and us went walking over fields. Then a bull runned at us, and my girl weren't built for running, but I got her over a stile somehow by the skin of the teeth, and the bull helped me after her from the rear. Horched me in the buttock, and I bled like a pig after. In fact, I saved her life. And she knowed it; and when I offered myself 'twas 'Dumpling' first and the rest nowhere, like the race-horse."
Mr. Maunder spoke.
"A faithful man to her memory. No doubt if the widow-men could all look back on such partners, there'd be less marrying a second than we see around us."
"In my case," declared the host, "I can't forget her enough to think of a second. Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in mind of her. For whether 'twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman happier. Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a duck to water. So I can't forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough. I say, 'Ah! how my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;' or 'how my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird's nest with the eggs in it.'"
The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded.
"Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently arrived. "He'd got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he told me so."
Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased.