Even at this juncture, Claud could not refrain from a cynical reflection on womanhood, as, in the person of the widow Parker, it calmly reckoned the news of a murder among the comforts of life.
"Your son Saul—where is he? Doesn't he bring you the news?" asked he.
"Lord no! not he! he mostly forgets it all on the way home, he don't keep nothing in his head for more than three minutes at a stretch. An' he ain't been outside the place to-day, for I've had a awful night with him," whined Mrs. Parker, sitting down on a chair and lifting a coal-black pocket-handkerchief to her eyes.
"What, another fit?" asked Claud.
"He was out last night in all that gale, if you'll believe me, sir. What he was after passes me, an' I set an' set awaitin' for him, and a-putting out my bit o' fire by opening the door, when the wind come in fit to blind yer, an' at last in he come, with every thread on him drippin' wet, and what he'd been after Lord knows, for not a word would he say but to call for his supper, and afore he'd 'ardly swallowed three mouthfuls he was took——"
"Took?" put in Percivale, sharply.
The widow paused, with her last pair of tears unwiped on her cheeks, and stared at him.
"With a fit, sir—he suffers from fits, my poor boy do," she said. "Epiplexy the doctor do call it, and, whatever it is, it's a nasty thing to suffer with. It makes him sorft, poor lad, and the other chaps laughs at him, and it's very hard on him, for you see, now he's growin' up, he feels it. I ain't a Devonshire woman myself—I'm from London, I am, and I do say these Devonshire lads are a sight deal too rough and rude. When they was all little together, I could cuff them as hurt him, but they're too big for that now."
There was no stopping her tongue. Poor soul! she led a lonely life, for her peevishness alienated her neighbors, who did not approve of the censure their manners and customs met with at her hands. She never could talk for five minutes to anyone without insisting on her London origin; and, as a result, it was but rarely that she could get an audience at all.
The flood-gates of her eloquence were now opened, and she poured forth a lengthy string of grievances.