“Take your time, missus, take your time!” murmured the miller in his head. He did not speak aloud, he only puffed his pipe.
“Do you suppose the genle’m be the father, missus?” he suggested, as he rose to go back to his work.
“Maybe,” said his wife, briefly; “I can’t speak one way or another to the feelings of men-folk.”
This blow was hit straight out, but the windmiller forbore reply. He was not altogether ill-pleased by it, for the woman’s unwonted peevishness broke down in new tears over the child, whom she bore away to bed, pouring forth over it half inarticulate indignation against its unnatural parents.
“She’ve a soft heart, have the missus,” said the windmiller, thoughtfully, as he went to the outer door. “I’m in doubts if she won’t take to it more than her own yet. But she shall have her own time.”
The storm had passed. The wolds lay glistening and dreary under a watery sky, but all was still. The windmiller looked upwards mechanically. To be weatherwise was part of his trade. But his thoughts were not in the clouds to-night. He brought the sample bag, without thinking of it, to the surface of his pocket, and dropped it slowly back again, murmuring, “Ten shilling a week.”
And as he turned again to his night’s work he added, with a nod of complete conviction, “It’ll more’n keep he.”
CHAPTER III.
THE WINDMILLER’S WORDS COME TRUE.—THE RED SHAWL.—IN THE CLOUDS.—NURSING V. PIG-MINDING.—THE ROUND-HOUSE.—THE MILLER’S THUMB.
Strange to say, the windmiller’s idea came true in time,—the foster-child was the favorite.