“But she ain’t his wife yet,” said Mrs Rogers to her husband, whose drift was not yet evident.
“No more she can be, ’cept he leaves his father for her.”
“And what’ll become of them then, without the mill?”
“You and me never had no mill, old ’oman,” said Rogers; “yet here we be, very nearly ripe now,—ain’t us, wife?”
“Medlar-like, Old Rogers, I doubt,—rotten before we’re ripe,” replied his wife, quoting a more humorous than refined proverb.
“Nay, nay, old ’oman. Don’t ’e say so. The Lord won’t let us rot before we’re ripe, anyhow. That I be sure on.”
“But, anyhow, it’s all very well to talk. Thou knows how to talk, Rogers. But how will it be when the children comes, and no mill?”
“To grind ’em in, old ’oman?”
Mrs Rogers turned to me, who was listening with real interest, and much amusement.
“I wish you would speak a word to Old Rogers, sir. He never will speak as he’s spoken to. He’s always over merry, or over serious. He either takes me up short with a sermon, or he laughs me out of countenance that I don’t know where to look.”