"Ah, purty fine. Wimmin du main dafty things when they'm drunk. Your brother ha' made a mommet of 'en, and like a vule he went and broke it for a bit o' dirty money."
"It bain't broke," said Mary. "Peter made a new mommet, and broke that."
"Glory be to God," cried Annie wildly, plucking out some grey hairs that were falling upon her eyes. "I'll tell 'en. 'Twill work, Mary Tavy. The devil who passed over last month will see to it. He never passed the Barton. He didn't want his own. I never knowed a mommet fail when 'twas made right."
"Du'ye say he bain't your husband?" Mary muttered, looking at the grey hairs in the woman's hand.
"See beyond!" screamed Annie, losing all self-control, pulling Mary to the kitchen window, pointing out. It was a dark cold kitchen, built of granite, with concrete floor. There was nothing to be seen but the big brake of furze, black and tangled, swaying slightly. It was a mighty brake, twenty years untouched, and there were no flowers upon it. The interior was a choked mass of dead growth.
"Why don't ye burn 'en, woman?"
"Ask 'en. It ain't going to be burnt yet—not yet, Mary Tavy." Annie's voice had fallen to a hoarse whisper. She was half-drunk and half-mad. Those twenty years were like twenty mountains piled upon her. "Look at my white hairs, Mary Tavy. I'm getting a bit old like, and I'm for the poorhouse, my dear. Annie Crocker, spinster—that's me. Twenty years I've watched that vuzz before this window rocking to and fro, like a cradle, my dear, rocking 'em to sleep. Yew know what 'tis to live wi' a man. You'm a fool to first, and a vule always I reckon, but such a vule to first that yew don't know' how to stop 'em coming. Yew think of love, Mary Tavy, and you don't care—and there 'em be, my dear, two of 'em, in the middle o' the vuzz."
"Did'st du it?" muttered Mary, standing like a wooden image.
"Me! I was young then, and I loved 'em. He took 'em from me when I was weak and mazed. I had to go through it here alone, twice my dear, alone wi' him, and he said they was dead, but I heard 'em cry, twice, my dear, only I was that weak I couldn't move. 'Twas winter both times, and I lay up over, and heard 'en walking on the stones of the court, and heard 'en let the bucket down, and heard 'en dra' it up—and then I heard 'en cursing o' the vuzz 'cause it pricked 'en, and his hands and face was bloody wi' scratches when he come up. I mind it all, though I was mazed—and I loved 'em, my dear."
"Preaches in chapel tu," said Mary, a sense of inconsistency occurring to her. "You'm a vule, woman, to tell to me like this."