At this moment Mrs. Cluett’s voice was heard calling aloud for her daughter; that lady’s heavy foot presently sounded in the narrow passage without, and she burst into the room.
“Dear, to be sure! Did ever a body see such a maid? Us so busy and clothes not half done wi’! And here ye must stand gawkin’ and gossipin’ as if ’twas the middle of the week. There, drink up your beer, do, good man, and let’s ha’ done wi’ it.”
She addressed these words to the newcomer in a somewhat softened tone, and he nodded good-humouredly.
“All right, missus; I’ll not be long now,” he said, as he poured out his second glass.
“There, for shame, mother, let the poor soul take his drink in peace,” whispered Alice. “He’s come far—from Tewley Warren; he’ve a-been turned out now his father be dead.”
Mrs. Cluett, with a soapy hand on either hip, surveyed the young man curiously.
“I did use to know Warrener Baverstock well,” she remarked slowly. “Warrener Baverstock up to Chudbury—e-es—I did use to know en.”
“He were my father,” remarked the other, with a momentary gleam of pleasure in his eyes.
“He did use to come here often and often,” continued Mrs. Cluett, emphatically. “He’d sit there—as mid be where you be a-sittin’ now—and he’d take his glass, he would; a most respectable man he were. My poor husband were alive too in them days—ah, times is changed, bain’t they? Here be I, a poor widow woman wi’ my own livin’ to get, tho’ there’s them as did ought to be gettin’ it for I in my ancient years.”
She paused to shake her head. Young Baverstock’s attention seemed to have wandered during the latter part of her speech, and he sipped his ale without evincing any curiosity as to the hint she had recently thrown out. After the manner of her kind, however, she at once proceeded to elucidate it.