“I don’t suppose I should,” he replied, bluntly.
“You was brought up wi’ such notions!” she continued. “Your mother didn’t ever set ye on a donkey’s back wi’ your face to the tail, did she?”
“I can’t call to mind as she did,” returned he, staring.
“Then, ’tain’t her fault, nor yours neither, if ye didn’t die o’ the whooping cough,” cried Martha triumphantly. “’Twas the first thing as ever my mother did do wi’ the lot of us, except my little brother Walter, and he was the only one as ever took that complaint, and never looked up after—just withered away, one mid say, and died.”
“Because he didn’t sit with his face to the ass’s tail,” said Sam, relaxing into a broad grin.
“Ye did ought to be ashamed o’ yourself, Sam, to go a-sneerin’ like that—there be a cross on the donkey’s back.”
Sam thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his corduroys, and paced beside her without speaking for a moment or two; then he turned to her with a good-humoured laugh:—
“Believe what you like, my maid, only don’t ask me to say I do do it!”
“I’m not axin’ you nothin’ at all, I’m sure,” returned Martha indifferently, though again the tell-tale colour swept over cheek and brow. She stooped presently, and plucked an ox-eye daisy from beneath the hedge.
“This year; next year; some time; never! This year—next year—some time—never—This year—next year—some time—never! This year!—I wonder if ’tis to be wi’ Bob Ellery. Come, I’ll try his fortune.”