“If there was but you an’ me,” she said presently, “the matter ’ud be easy settled. I could do wi’ you very well, Mester Barnes. As ye say, we can feel for one another—but there’s the childer to be thought on—all they little lads o’ mine—there is but the one lass, ye know.”
“The more the merrier,” returned Jim placidly. “There’s plenty o’ little odd jobs they can be doin’ on, at arter school be over. I often wish I’d ha’ had more lads mysel’.”
“Well, but,” continued Mrs Wharton, to whom the various aspects of the situation were slowly unfolding themselves, “there’s your big lass to be thought on—your Maimie. I doubt she’ll not make it so very pleasant for me. I could manage the little ones right enough—I was allus fond o’ childer. But your Maimie—I doubt we shouldn’t get on so very well together.”
“Oh, ye’d get on,” said Barnes, “ye’d get on at arter a bit, I dare say.”
He did not speak very confidently, however, and presently continued in a still more dubious tone: “’Tis your Luke as is a bit of a stumblin’ block. I hadn’t reckoned he were that masterful. I doubt it’ll not be easy to get him to content hissel’ wi’ workin’ here under me, at arter he’s been cock o’ the walk at your place.”
“Workin’ here under you,” repeated Mrs Wharton blankly. “He’d never do that—never. I don’t know however it’s to be managed, Mester Barnes, I’m sure. I didn’t reckon to leave our place, ye see. I reckoned—well the thought jest happened to strike me, as if I was to take a second husband he’d be content to coom an’ live at the Pit.”
Farmer Barnes rolled his head from side to side, and gazed at the good woman with a sternly disapproving air.
“That wouldn’t suit me,” he said, “nay, that it wouldn’t. Our family have been settled here for a hundred year an’ more; I bain’t a-goin’ to shift.”
Again Mrs Wharton considered. She was not disposed to relinquish her rights without a struggle, but, on the other hand, Jim Barnes was the most eligible suitor who was likely to come her way. The widowed state of both seemed to make the alliance peculiarly desirable; none of the neighbours could cast up at her for replacing poor Joe so soon when her second husband stood as much in need of consolation as herself. Then he was well-to-do, and a most excellent father. She had thought, moreover, that his support would have enabled her to get the better of the recalcitrant Luke. But there were limits which could not be outstepped. To expect a youth of twenty-two to accept a subordinate position on strange premises was too much.
“The Pit Farm is a very fine farm,” she remarked tentatively, after a pause. “The Whartons have lived there a good few year too. ’Tis but nat’ral as our Luke should look to steppin’ into his feyther’s shoes some day when I’m laid under ground. ’Tis what he’ve a right to expect.”