"Why for do he stop if he'm not satisfied with his wages?" asked Hephzibah. "Such a mighty man he is. Why, if there was an inch or two more of him, he might a'most have got his living in a doom-show, an' never done a stroke more work. I seed a giant at Plymouth fair two or three years back—a poor reed of a man, up seven foot high, wi' death written in the great, sorrowful white face of him. But Dan's so strong as he be large."
"He wouldn't fling up Ruddyford for anything. He gets very good money, you know, though not so good as he could wish. Then there's father up to the peat-works. I promised, and Dan promised, not to go very far off from him."
Mrs. Weekes shook her head at Gregory Friend, though he did not appreciate the fact, for he was talking to Philip.
"A wilful and a silly soul, though your father," she said. "'Tis wasting the years of his life to stop up there—no better than a pelican in the wilderness. He ought to be made to drop it."
"I wish you could make him," said Sarah Jane. "Already he's planning to teach the baby all about peat."
"'Peat'!" cried Hephzibah scornfully. "I hope no godchild of mine will sink to peat. Let me make a market-man of him, and take him afore the nation, and teach him the value of money, and the knack to get it, and the way to stick to it!"
"'Tis very good of you, I'm sure," declared the mother. "I hope he'll be much drawed to you, come he grows."
"He's drawed to me already," asserted Mrs. Weekes. "We understand each other mighty well."
Going home with her husband, Hephzibah heard the news concerning Hilary Woodrow and his proposed winter lodgment. She was much excited, and even Mr. Weekes won a word of praise. But he deserved it, and, in justice, his wife dispensed the same.
When first he told her, she stood still and rated him.