“Too wise, old girl. You’ll not catch me at that work. Wives is like Flanders’ mares, as the Squire says, fairest afar off.”
“Hey?” snarled old Mildred, with a prolonged note.
“No, lass, I don’t want, nohow, to be Squire o’ Wyvern—there’s more pains than gains in it; always one thing or t’other wrong—one begs and t’other robs, and ten cusses to one blessin’. I don’t want folks to say o’ me as they does of some—Harry’s a hog, and does no good till he dies.”
“Folk do like an estate, though,” said Mildred, with another shrewd look.
“Ay, if all’s straight and clear, but I don’t like debts and bother, and I a’ seen how the old boy’s worried that way till he’s fit to drown himself in the pond. I can do something, buyin’ or sellin’; and little and often, you know, fills the purse.”
Mildred was silent.
“They do say—I mean, I knows it for certain, there is a screw loose—and you know where, I think—but how can I help that? The Dutchwoman, I know, can prove her marriage to poor Charlie, but never you blab—no more will I. There was no child o’ that marriage—neither chick nor child, so, bein’ as she is, ’tis little to her how that sow’s handled. ’Twould be a pity poor Charlie’s son should lose his own; and ye may tell Alice I’m glad there’s a boy, and that she’ll ha’ no trouble from me, but all the help I can, and that’s a fact, and that’s God’s truth.”
“Well, well, that is queer!—I never heard man speak as you speak.”
There was a cynical incredulity in Mildred Tarnley’s tone.
“Listen, now—here we be alone, eh?” said he, looking round.