“Then I’ll keep mine on him,” said Collet sturdily, as she paused at her own door, which was that of the one little shoemaker’s shop in the village of Staplehurst. “Good-morrow, neighbour. I’ll but lay down my fardel, and then step o’er to poor Sens Bradbridge.”
“And I’ll come to see her this even. Good-morrow.”
And Emmet Wilson walked on further to her home, where her husband was the village baker and corn-monger.
Note 1. Emmet is a very old variation of Emma, and sometimes spelt Emmot; Sens is a corruption of Sancha, naturalised among us in the thirteenth century; and Collet or Colette, the diminutive of Nichola, a common and favourite name in the Middle Ages.
Chapter Two.
Christabel.
Alice Benden had reached Cranbrook, and was busied with her various errands. Her position was slightly superior to that of Emmet and Collet, for she was the wife of a man who “lived upright,” which enigmatical expression signified that he had not to work for his living. Edward Benden’s father had made a little money, and his son, who had no children to whom to leave his property, chose to spend it rather than bequeath it to distant relatives who were strangers to him. He owned some half-dozen houses at Staplehurst, one of which was occupied by the Pardues, and he lived on the rents of these, and the money saved by his thrifty father. The rents he asked were not unreasonable, but if a tenant failed to pay, out he must go. He might as well appeal to the door-posts as to Edward Benden.