A week elapsed before the subject was broached again. Then Simon spoke to Matthew as they were leaving the tannery-yard.
“Coom into th’ ‘Queen Anne’” (he called it quëan), “Matt, and have a gill; aw’ve summat t’ say to thee.”
There was nobody in the taproom. They sat down to their half-pint horns of ale—times were too hard to afford deeper draughts—and Simon said:
“Aw’ve bin thinkin’ o’ this week, an’ as aw connot forgive yo’r Sal, gradely loike, aw’ll no put th’ same temptation i’ th’ way of eawr Bess. Hoo’d better think Tum’s takken oop wi’ some other wench, than ha’ th’ shame o’ knowin’ th’ lad’s toorned her up i’ disgrace. Hoo’s getten ower th’ worst o’ her trouble, an’ awm not gooin to break her heart outreet, and mebbe set her agen little Jabez into th’ bargain.”
Matthew could but assent to Simon’s proposition. But Simon had not said all his say.
“But aw’m not gooin’ to sit deawn wi’ my honds i’ mi’ lap, an’ that grëat lump o’ dirty slutch stickin’ to moi lass. Yo’ mun help me t’ find eawt wheer Tum Hulme’s getten to, an’ help to set o’ straight afore aw forgive yo’r Sal, tho’ hoo be dead an’ gone.”
“Wi’ o’ my heart!” responded Matt; and he gave his huge hand to Simon in token thereof.
When the Duke of Gloucester inspected the volunteers at Ardwick on the 30th of September that same year, not one of the people I have here linked together witnessed the show.
The blinds were down at Mr. Aspinall’s to shut out a sight the like of which had made him a widower; and within the darkened nursery, wilful, obstreperous Laurence fought and kicked and bit at old Kitty, because she kept him within doors and from the windows at his father’s command.