“Well, he do appear to be somethin’ o’ that sort, sureish enough. Asleep, eh? He snorts like a good un! An’t he a leetlish bit more than sleepin’?” continued the interrogator, seeing that Bet hesitated to make reply to this last interrogatory. “Eh, gurl?”
“Well! I won’t ask ye to answer the question—seein’ he be thy father. But theer sartinly be a strongish smell here. Ah! it be coomin’ from these cups, I suppose.”
Garth, as he said this, lifted one of the drinking vessels from the table; and held it up to his nose.
“That’s been Hollands in that ’ere. Same in t’other,” he added, smelling the second cup. “Got the exact bokay—as the French say ’bout their wines—o’ some o’ them spirits over at the Dean. But surely the old un don’t need both cups to drink out o’. There’s been another un at it? It wan’t thyself?”
“No!” replied Bet, pronouncing the denial with a slightly indignant emphasis.
“Doant be ’fended, gurl! I war only a jokin’ thee. But who war the other jovial?”
“A friend of father’s. You know him, master? Will Walford it was.”
“A friend o’ your father’s, eh? A great friend o’ yer father’s, aint he?”
“Father thinks a deal of him—more than he ought to, may be.”
“Then it’s not true, Mistress Betsey, that you be so sweet upon this Wull Walford?”