“Well, you’re a plucky little soul, I’ll say that for you,” remarked the farmer, more good-naturedly than he had yet spoken. “There, get your rake then.”
Mr Ellery’s words of eulogy were repeated by many voices when the men assembled at the dinner hour in the shady corner near the pool. Mrs Crumpler elected to go home for that meal, remarking cheerfully that she thought Jarge would be pretty well hisself by that time, and would be lookin’ out for a bite o’ summat.
“Maister hissel’ did tell her she was a good plucked ’un,” said Bill, “and so she be. I d’ ’low there bain’t many ’oomen as ’ud gie theirselves all that trouble for a chap like Jarge.”
“I could wish my missus ’ud take a leaf out of her book. There, the way the ’ooman do go on if I do take so much as the leastest drap.”
“My wold ’ooman wouldn’t put herself out for I, neither,” said another.
As they sat and watched the retreating figure of Mrs Crumpler hastening across the field, they felt themselves more and more injured, and were disposed to vent their grievances on their own women-kind, who presently appeared to minister to them.
“A few spuds,” remarked Bill, discontentedly prodding at the little basin from which his wife had just removed the cloth. “A few spuds and hardly so much grease to ’em as ’ll m’isten ’em. We’ve a-had a little ’ooman among us to-day as could show ’ee summat, my dear.”
“A ’ooman!” cried Mrs Frost, instantly on the alert.
“Oh, e-es,” responded Bill, shaking his head. “A ’ooman as knowed summat of the duties of a wife, didn’t she, Ed’ard?”
“Jist about,” said “Ed’ard” with his mouth full.