"No, zur, I doan't," said the road-mender, unexpectedly. "Beer doan't agree wi' my inzide, an' it gits into my yead, and makes me proper jolly, zo the young volk make game on me. But I cude du wi' a drop o' zider zur; and drink your health and the young lady's, zur, zo 'a cude."
He winked and nodded as he pocketed the coin; and John, half laughing and half vexed, pursued his road with Sarah.
"It seems to me that the old gentleman has become a trifle free and easy with advancing years," he observed.
"He thinks he has a right to be interested in the family," said Sarah, "because of the connection, you see."
"The connection?"
"Didn't you know?" she asked, with wide-open eyes. "Though you were
Sir Timothy's own cousin."
"A very distant cousin," said John.
"But every one in the valley knows," said Sarah, "that Sir Timothy's father married his own cook, who was Happy Jack's first cousin. When I was a little girl, and wanted to tease Peter," she added ingenuously, "I always used to allude to it. It is the skeleton in their cupboard. We haven't got a skeleton in our family," she added regretfully; "least of all the skeleton of a cook."
John remembered vaguely that there was a story about the second marriage of Sir Timothy the elder.
"So she was a cook!" he said. "Well, what harm?" and he laughed in spite of himself. "I wonder why there is something so essentially unromantic in the profession of a cook?"