‘Well, t’ hounds couldn’t get across t’ beck, and t’ Squire’s first whip was ready wi’ t’ horn to fetch them back again; so Cunliffe was safe enough, but sorely damaged an’ bruised, an’ ’twas a full week before he left his house, when straight he goes abroad on foreign travel.
‘Things gradually went on from bad to worse twixt t’ Squire and Mistress Heron after that night’s play; she used to lament for Lunnon an’ its fashions, an’ on t’ last night of all she set t’owd Squire’s blood blazin’ by sneerin’ at “country yokels” and their drunken ways.
‘“Why, damn t’ ——!” cries he, quite forgetting himself, and using a word more suitable to t’ kennels than t’ drawing-room, “ain’t we been here since King Alfred? An’ what can ye want more than that?”
‘Swift as fire she answers him, “One might wish that they were gentlemen,” says she, an’ cold an’ contemptuous she walks past him out of the drawing-room and up into her own room, where she orders her maid to pack up for her at once, an’ ’tis but an hour later when she drives away in t’ carriage an’ never sees t’owd place again.
‘Well, they separate by law, an’ shortly after, when t’ bairn comes to live with his father, Mistress Heron gets much taken up with one of those father parsons, famous as a preacher in Lunnon at that time.
‘Finally, she goes into a sort of retirement and becomes head of a sisterhood shortly, which gets to be very famous for its Good Samaritan sort of deeds.
‘Grandfather used to say that whatever she took up she would be sworn to do better than anybody else. “Fox-’untin’ she learnt clever in six months’ time, an’ if ye can larn that ye can larn owt,” says he.
‘As for t’owd Squire, he hunts harder than ever he had done before; an’ nowt, positively nowt, can stop him across country, nor liquor stagger him, so that many thought he was heartier an’ happier than ever he had been before.
‘His son, as he grew up, was a bit trouble to him, certainly, as he was a wild lad—just like himself, but with a touch of his mother’s pride, so that it was just as well when he went into t’ army an’ was sent to t’ Indies.
‘Well, time sped on, and t’owd Squire’s hair was turnin’ gray, when news came that his wife—Sister Eva, as they called her—had died suddenly in her retreat or convent.