“There be a story, too, o’ her bein’ nigh drownded an’ his saving her out o’ a boat. Now, Jack, whose boat could that be if it wa’nt your’n?”
“’Twor mine, mother; that’s true enough. I would a told you long ago, but he asked me not to talk o’ the thing. Besides, I didn’t suppose you’d care to hear about it.”
“Well,” she says, satisfied, “’tan’t much to me, nor you neyther, Jack; only as the Captain being so kind, we’d both like to know the best about him. If he have took a fancy for the young lady, I hope she return it. She ought after his doin’ what he did for her. I han’t heerd her name; what be it?”
“She’s a Miss Wynn, mother. A very rich heiress. ’Deed I b’lieve she ain’t a heiress any longer, or won’t be, after next Thursday, sin’ that day she comes o’ age. An’ that night there’s to be a big party at her place, dancin’ an’ all sorts o’ festivities. I know it because the Captain’s goin’ there, an’ has bespoke the boat to take him.”
“Wynn, eh? That be a Welsh name. Wonder if she’s any kin o’ the great Sir Watkin.”
“Can’t say, mother. I believe there be several branches o’ the Wynn family.”
“Yes, and all o’ the good sort. If she be one o’ the Welsh Wynns, the Captain can’t go far astray in having her for his wife.”
Mrs Wingate is herself of Cymric ancestry, originally from the shire of Pembroke, but married to a man of Montgomery, where Jack was born. It is only of late, in her widowhood, she has become a resident of Herefordshire.
“So you think he have a notion o’ her, Jack?”
“More’n that, mother. I may as well tell ye; he be dead in love wi’ her. An’ if you seed the young lady herself, ye wouldn’t wonder at it. She be most as good-looking as—”