“Try fur a seat i' Parlyment,” was the answer, “or pack my bits o' duds i' a wheelbarrow, an' set th' owd lass on 'era an' tak' th' nighest road to th' Union. I mun do summat fur a bein'.”
“That's true enow. We're main sorry fur thee, Sammy. Tak' another mug o' sixpenny to keep up thy sperrets. Theer's nowt as cheers a mon loike a sup o' th' reet soart.”
“I shanna get much on it if I go to th' poor-house,” remarked Sammy, filling his beer mug. “Skilly an' water-gruel dunnot fly to a raon's head, I'll warrant. Aye! I wonder how th' owd lass'll do wi'out her drop o' tea, an' how she'll stand bein' buried by th' parish? That'll be worse than owt else. She'd set her moind on ridin' to th' grave-yard i' th' shiniest hearse as could be getten, an' wi' aw th' black feathers i' th' undertaker's shop wavin' on th' roof. Th' owd wench wur quoite set i' her notion o' bein' a bit fashynable at th' last. I believe hoo'd ha' enjoyed th' ride in a quiet way. Eh, dear! I'm feart she'll nivver be able to stand th' thowt o' bein' put under i' a common style. I wish we'd kept a bit o' brass i' th' owd stockin'.”
“It's a bad enow lookout,” granted another, “but I would na gi' up aw at onct, Sammy. Happen tha could find a bit o' leet work, as ud keep thee owt o' th' Union. If tha could get a word or two spoke to Mester Hoviland, now. He's jest lost his lodge-keeper an' he is na close about payin' a mon fur what he does. How would tha loike to keep the lodge?”
“It ud be aw I'd ax,” said Sammy. “I'd be main well satisfied, yo' mebbe sure; but yo' know theer's so mony lookin' out for a job o' that koind, an' I ha' na mony friends among th' quality. I nivver wur smooth-tongued enow.”
True enough that. Among the country gentry, Sammy Craddock was regarded as a disrespectful, if not a dangerous, old fellow. A man who made satirical observations upon the ways and manners of his social superiors, could not be much better than a heretic. And since his associates made an oracle of him, he was all the more dangerous. He revered neither Lords nor Commons, and was not to be awed by the most imposing institutions. He did not take his hat off when the gentry rode by, and it was well known that he had jeered at several of the most important individuals in county office. Consequently, discreet persons who did not believe in the morals of “the masses” shook their heads at him, figuratively speaking, and predicted that the end of his career would be unfortunate. So it was not very likely that he would receive much patronage in the hour of his downfall.
Sammy Craddock was in an uncomfortable frame of mind when he left his companions and turned homeward. It was a bad lookout for himself, and a bad one for “th' owd lass.” His sympathy for the good woman was not of a sentimental order, but it was sympathy nevertheless. He had been a good husband, if not an effusive one. “Th' owd lass” had known her only rival in The Crown and his boon companions; and upon the whole, neither had interfered with her comfort, though it was her habit and her pleasure to be loud in her condemnation and disparagement of both. She would not have felt her connubial life complete without a grievance, and Sammy's tendency to talk politics over his pipe and beer was her standard resource.
When he went out, he had left her lying down in the depths of despair, but when he entered the house, he found her up and dressed, seated by the window in the sun, a bunch of bright flowers before her.
“Well now!” he exclaimed. “Tha niwer says! What's takken thee? I thowt tha wur bedrid fur th' rest o' thy days.”
“Howd thy tongue,” she answered with a proper touch of wifely irritation at his levity. “I've had a bit o' company an' it's chirked me up summat. That little lass o' th' owd Parson has been settin wi' me.”