“’Twixt this and Wykeford,” he answered, “across the common he’s ridin’.”
“To Wykeford, hey?”
“To Wykeford, every foot, if he don’t run him down on the way; and when they meet—him and Squire Rodney—’twill be hot and shrewd work between them, I tell ye. I’d a rid wi’ him myself if there was a beast to carry me, for three agin one is too long odds.”
“Ye don’t mean to tell me!” exclaimed Mildred, planting her mop perpendicularly on the ground, and leaning immovably on this sceptre.
“Tell ye what?”
“There’s goin’ to be rough work like that on the head o’t?”
“Hot blood, ma’am. Ye know the Fairfields. They folk don’t stand long jawin’. It’s like when the blood’s up the hand’s up too.”
“And what’s he to fight for—not that blind beldame, sure?”
“I want my mug o’ beer,” said Tom, turning the conversation.
“Yes, sure,” she said, “yes, ye shall have it. But what for should Master Charles go to wry words wi’ Squire Rodney, and what for should there be blows and blood spillin’ between ’em? Nonsense!”