“We are never too big to learn to be good, Barker,” continued Mrs Wilton, “and I’m afraid you are growing a bad boy now.”
“Oh, I don’t know, missus; I shouldn’t be a bad ’un if there was no game.”
“That will do, that will do,” said the Squire, impatiently. “That’s all you know, then, sir?”
“Oh, no; I knows a lot more than that,” said the lad, grinning.
“Then why the deuce don’t you speak?”
“What say?”
“Tell me what more you know about Mr Claud and the lady, and I’ll give you another shilling.”
“Will yer?” cried the lad, eagerly. “Well, I’ve seed’d ’em five or six times afore going along by the copse and down the narrow lane, and I sin him put his arm round her oncet, and I was close by, lying clost to a rabbud hole; and she says, ‘How dare you, sir! how dare you!’ just like that I dunno any more, and that makes two shillin’.”
“There; be off. Take him away, Samuel, and give him a horn of beer.”
“Yes sir—Now, then, come on.”