“Never mind a glass, a rantin’ dog like me can drink out of a well-bucket, much less a brown jug,” and clutching it carelessly by the handle he quaffed as long and deep a draught as his ancestor and namesake might after his exhausting flight from Worcester a couple of hundred years before.
“You are puzzled, old girl, and don’t know whether I be in jest or earnest. But, good or bad, wives must be had—you know, and you never heard of a Fairfield yet that was lucky in a wife, or hadn’t a screw loose sometime about they sort o’ cattle; and ye’re an old servant, Mildred, and though you be a bit testy, you’re true, and I may tell ye things I wouldn’t tell no one, not the Governor, not my little finger; I’d burn my shirt if it knew; and ye won’t tell no one, upon your soul, and as ye hope to be saved?”
“I can keep counsel, I’m good at that,” said Mildred.
“Well, I need not say no more than this: there’s them that’s quiet enough now, and will be, that if they thought I was Squire o’ Wyvern I’d make the world too hot to hold me. I’d rather be Harry Fairfield at fair and market than archbishop of hell, I can tell ye, havin’ no likin’ for fine titles and honour, and glory, wi’ a tethered leg and a sore heart; better to go your own gait, and eat your mouthful where ye find it, than go in gold wi’ a broken back, that’s all, and that’s truth. If ’twas otherwise I’d be down in the mouth, I can tell you, about the young genman upstairs, and I’d a’ liked his birthday no better than a shepherd loves a bright Candlemas; but as it is—no matter, ’tis better to me than a pot o’ gold, and I drink the little chap’s health, and I wish she had a sieve full o’ them, and that’s God’s truth, as I stand here,” and Harry backed the declaration with an oath.
“Well, I believe you, Harry,” said Mildred.
“And I’m glad o’t,” she added after a pause.
“I’m very glad—there has been ill blood o’er much in the family,” she resumed; “it’s time there should be peace and brotherhood, God knows—and—I’m glad to hear you speak like that, sir.”
And, so saying, she extended her dark, hard palm to him, and he took it, and laughed.
“Every man knows where his own shoe pinches,” said he; “’tis a shrewish world, old girl, and there’s warts and chilblains where no one guesses, but things won’t be for ever; ’tis a long lane, ye know, that has no turning, and the burr won’t stick always.”
“Ay, ay, Master Harry, as I’ve heard the old folks say, ‘Be the day never so long, at last cometh even-song.’”