“I was not going to fling myself over,” said I, dropping from the balustrade; “how came you to think of such a thing?”
“Why, seeing you clamber up so fiercely, I thought you might have had ill luck, and that you wished to make away with yourself.”
“Ill luck,” said I, going into the stone bower and sitting down. “What do you mean? ill luck in what?”
“Why, no great harm, dear! cly-faking, perhaps.”
“Are you coming over me with dialects,” said I, “speaking unto me in fashions I wot nothing of?”
“Nay, dear! don’t look so strange with those eyes of your’n, nor talk so strangely; I don’t understand you.”
“Nor I you; what do you mean by cly-faking?”
“Lor, dear! no harm; only taking a handkerchief now and then.”
“Do you take me for a thief?”
“Nay, dear! don’t make use of bad language; we never calls them thieves here, but prigs and fakers: to tell you the truth, dear, seeing you spring at that railing put me in mind of my own dear son, who is now at Bot’ny: when he had bad luck, he always used to talk of flinging himself over the bridge; and, sure enough, when the traps were after him, he did fling himself into the river, but that was off the bank; nevertheless, the traps pulled him out, and he is now suffering his sentence; so you see you may speak out, if you have done anything in the harmless line, for I am my son’s own mother, I assure you.”