Mary. Then do both of you tell your sorrow. ’Twill be strange if I do not find sommat that will lighten your burdens for you.
Lubin. ’Twas at Moat Farm I was born and bred.
Mary. Close up to Daniels yonder?
Lubin. The same. Rose-Anna of the Mill and I—we courted and was like to marry. But there came misfortune and I lost my all. She would not take a poor man, so I left these parts and got to be what you do see me now—just a day labourer.
Isabel. Mine, ’tis the same tale, very nigh. Robert the ferry-man and me, we loved and was to have got us wedded, only there came a powerful rich gentleman what used to go fishing along of Robert. ’Twas he that ’ticed my lover off to foreign parts.
Lubin. [With a heavy sigh.] These things are almost more than I can bear.
Isabel. At first he wrote his letters very often. Then ’twas seldom like. Then ’twas never. And then there comed a day—[She is interrupted by her weeping.
Mary. Try to get out your story—you can let the tears run afterwards if you have a mind.
Isabel. There comed a day when I did meet a fisherman from Bristol. He brought me news of Robert back from the seas, clothed in fine stuff with money in the pockets of him, horse and carriage, and just about to wed.
Lubin. Did he name the maid?