“Where were you born?”
“Camden Tahn.”
Here was a nice beginning to a rural life! What place could be the country while this boy Hopkins was about? He would have given to the Garden of Eden the atmosphere of an outlying suburb.
“Do you want to earn an occasional shilling?” I put it to him.
“I’d rather it come reggler,” said Hopkins. “Better for me kerrickter.”
“You drop that Cockney accent and learn Berkshire, and I’ll give you half a sovereign when you can talk it,” I promised him. “Don’t, for instance, say ‘ain’t,’” I explained to him. “Say ‘bain’t.’ Don’t say ‘The young lydy, she came rahnd to our plice;’ say ‘The missy, ’er coomed down; ’er coomed, and ’er ses to the maister, ’er ses . . . ’ That’s the sort of thing I want to surround myself with here. When you informed me that the cow was mine, you should have said: ‘Whoi, ’er be your cow, surelie ’er be.’”
“Sure it’s Berkshire?” demanded Hopkins. “You’re confident about it?” There is a type that is by nature suspicious.
“It may not be Berkshire pure and undefiled,” I admitted. “It is what in literature we term ‘dialect.’ It does for most places outside the twelve-mile radius. The object is to convey a feeling of rustic simplicity. Anyhow, it isn’t Camden Town.”
I started him with a shilling then and there to encourage him. He promised to come round in the evening for one or two books, written by friends of mine, that I reckoned would be of help to him; and I returned to the cottage and set to work to rouse Robina. Her tone was apologetic. She had got the notion into her head that I had been calling her for quite a long time. I explained that this was not the case.
“How funny!” she answered. “I said to Veronica more than an hour ago: ‘I’m sure that’s Pa calling us.’ I suppose I must have been dreaming.”