“Byestry,” said the man, nodding in the direction of the roofs. “Us doant go down into t’place. Yü’m to have Widow Jenkins’s cottage, her as died back tü Christmas. ’Tis a quarter o’mile or so from t’town, and ’twill be that mooch nearer t’old Hall. Yü see yon chimbleys by they three elms yonder? ’Tis Doctor’s house. Yü’m tü go there this evenin’ aboot seven o’clock ’e bid me tell ’ee. Where was yü working tü last?”
The question came abruptly. For one brief second Antony was non-plussed. Then he recovered himself.
“’Tis London I’ve just come from,” he replied airily enough. “I’ve been doing a bit on my own account lately.”
“Hmm,” replied the man. “I reckon if I’d been workin’ my own jobs, I’d not take an under post in a hurry. But yü knoaws your own business best. T’last chap as was underest gardener oop tü t’Hall got took on by folks living over Exeter way. He boarded wi’ t’blacksmith and his wife. Maybe yü’m a married man?”
“I am not,” said Antony smiling.
“Not got a maid at all?” queried the other.
Antony shook his head.
The man opened his eyes. “Lord love ’ee, what do un want wi’ a cottage, then! Yü’d best be takin’ oop wi’ a wife. There’s a sight of vitty maids tü Byestry, and ’tis lonesome like comin’ home to an empty hearth and no supper. There’s Rose Darell, her’s a güd maid, and has a bit o’ money; or Jenny Horswell, her’s a bit o’ a squint, but is a fair vitty maid tü t’cleanin’; or Vicky Mathers, her’s as pretty as a picter, but her’s not the money nor the house ways o’ Rose or Jenny,” he ended with thoughtful consideration.
Antony laughed, despite the fact that inwardly he was not a trifle dismayed. He had no mind to have the belles of Byestry thus paraded for his choice. Work, he had accepted with the conditions, but a wife was a very different matter.
“Sure, I’m not a marryin’ man at all, I am not,” he responded, a hypocritical sigh succeeding to the laugh.