"Well may you ask! That thankless terror of a child runned off to Ruddyford again last night; and there she heard it. The man be called Daniel Brendon—some labourer lately took on by Woodrow. But 'tis for you to stop it if you're my son. I lay I'd put a spoke in their wheel double quick! All the same, the woman's not worth it—a gert, good-for-nought, gallivanting giglet as she is!"
"A pretty poor compliment to me, if it's true," he said.
"Very likely it isn't true at all. Still, it's your job. Only think twice. There's the schoolmaster's darter be worth twenty of Sarah Jane."
"Couldn't stand her voice, mother—nor yet her temper."
"More fool you. Give me a voice and a temper, too, if you want to get on in the world. 'Tis the gentle sort, as twitters like birds and be frightened to hurt a fly, as always go down. Let people hear your voice and feel your temper; then they'll respect you and you'll keep up your end of the stick. Them as be so sweet as sugar, mostly melt like sugar in the hard business of life."
"One thing I know, afore God, and that is, if she takes any man but me, I'll be revenged on her and him, if it costs my last farthing."
"What's the sense of that talk? If you'm set on her still, have her willy-nilly. Do anything inside honesty. Ride off with her! Break the man's stupid head for him! All the same, that's not sense, but only passion. My advice may be nought; but it is just this: that you bide along with your mother for the present, and wait for a better maiden to turn up."
"That woman could have done pretty well anything she liked with me."
"I hope not. What foolishness! You think so now. You wouldn't have thought so a week beyond your honey-month. Well, 'tis for you to go forward. The very sort of job I should have liked, if I'd been a man."
"I'll have it out with the chap."