"I feel, I du," she said to herself, "as I want to scream if I set and watch them, but I du know he be a good man and a hard worker, with no love for the alehouse and reg'lar to Church and like to make Betty a good husband, and after all, what du a man's hands matter? So be as he du work with them and earn his living honourable and upright in the state of life which it du please God to call him!"
"I've got your wishes, I hev," he said, "I know that, but what be the use of your wishes to me, Mrs. Hanson, so I haven't got Betty's liking?"
"You mustn't take too much notice of the maid; maids be strange and fickle things, aye and vain they be! The man as praises a maid to her face and tells her she be nice looking be the one as goes best with they!"
"What do 'ee want I to do?" he said sullenly. "I know there beain't a maid to compare wi' Betty, there beain't one as be fit to tie her shoes!" A dull red crept into his checks, his voice shook, his fingers worked more nervously and more rapidly at the destruction of the antimacassar.
"Slow of speech I be," he said thickly, "and difficult it du be for me to find words—there be a thousand things I would say to she—they be here all in my brain, but my tongue won't utter them! I—I try—" he paused, choking, "I try, I look at she dumblike and stupid and knowing it, aye, curse it, knowing it!" His voice rose, he wrenched at the antimacassar, he tore a piece away; his fingers were hideous to see at this moment and Mrs. Hanson looked resolutely at his face. Yet she was all the time conscious of the havoc his fingers were making.
"Do 'ee think I don't want to tell she? I du! I du, I try to, but my tongue won't do me sarvice. I love her!" He paused. "I love her!" He said it again. "Love her, I mean to tell her, yet like as not her'll laugh at me!" He stood up, he flung the antimacassar to the floor, his hands worked up and down his coat, tearing and fingering at the buttons and the buttonholes.
"There bain't a maid in all the world like she, not a man fit to kiss the grounds she treads on. If a man, a man in this village did look at she wi' harmful eyes, I'd kill him!" He nodded. "Kill him!" He said. "I'd get my hands on his throat and never let go! Sometimes when I think of her I feel that I be going mad like, I see red—red passion before my eyes. I tell 'ee, Mrs. Hanson, ma'am, I've got your wishes, I know, I know! But I must hev that maid; no one else shall, as God hears me, no one else shall!"
He went to the door, swinging his arms violently, his fingers clenched and unclenching.
"I've got your wishes, I hev, I'm glad of them, ma'am. I thank 'ee, I du—your good wishes, Ma'am, and I be obliged greatly, I be—and—please don't mind my tempers! 'Tis thinking of the maid makes me so; a peaceful man I be, and begging your pardon, Ma'am, that I did forget myself, but 'tis thinking of the maid that—that drives me like you see me, Ma'am! But I beg your pardon I du, most politely!"
He was gone and Mrs. Hanson sighed and stooped and picked up from the ground the work of her own busy fingers—and his! She sighed again, looking at the destruction of it.