“Well, then, let’s hope poor Sens Bradbridge is likewise, for she’s like to get well squeezed and trodden. Have you heard she’s lost her master?”
“I have so. Mistress Final told me this morrow early. Nay, I doubt she’s more of the reed family, and ’ll bow down her head like a bulrush. Sens Bradbridge’ll bend afore she breaks, and Mistress Benden ’ll break afore she bends.”
“’Tis pity Mistress Benden hath ne’er a child; it might soften her master, and anyhow should comfort her.”
“I wouldn’t be the child,” said Emmet drily.
Collet laughed. “Well, nor I neither,” said she. “I reckon they’ll not often go short of vinegar in that house; Master Benden’s face ’d turn all the wine, let alone the cream. I’m fain my master’s not o’ that fashion: he’s a bit too easy, my Nick is. I can’t prevail on him to thwack the lads when they’re over-thwart; I have to do it myself.”
“I’ll go bail you’d not hurt ’em much,” said Emmet, with an amused glance at the round, rosy, good-humoured face of the mother of the six “over-thwart” lads.
“Oh, will you! But I am a short mistress with ’em, I can tell you. Our Aphabell shall hear of it, I promise you, when I get home. I bade him yester-even fetch me two pound o’ prunes from the spicer’s, and gave him threepence in his hand to pay for ’em; and if the rascal went not and lost the money at cross and pile with Gregory White, and never a prune have I in the store-cupboard. He’s at all evers playing me tricks o’ that fashion. ’Tisn’t a week since I sent him for a dozen o’ Paris candles, and he left ’em in the water as he came o’er the bridge. Eh, Mistress Wilson, but lads be that pestiferous! You’ve but one, and that one o’ the quiet peaceable sort—you’ve somewhat to be thankful for, I can tell you, that hasn’t six like me, and they a set o’ contrarious, outrageous, boisterous caitiffs as ever was seen i’ this world.”
“Which of ’em would you wish to part with, Collet?”
“Well, be sure!” was Collet’s half-laughing answer, as she mentally reviewed the young gentlemen in question—her giddy, thoughtless Aphabell, her mischievous Tobias, her Esdras always out at elbows, her noisy, troublesome Noah, her rough Silvanus, whom no amount of “thwacking” seemed to polish, and her lazy, ease-loving Valentine. “Nay, come, I reckon I’ll not make merchandise of any of ’em this bout. They are a lot o’ runagates, I own, but I’m their mother, look you.”
Emmet Wilson smiled significantly. “Ay, Collet, and ’tis well for you and me that cord bears pulling at.”