At last he rolled his tongue round his dry lips and delivered himself by a final effort.
"Them as likes, miss, may believe as how things are going to happen that way, but yer won't ketch me! Them as have got 'ull keep"—he let his stick sharply down on the floor—"an' them as 'aven't got 'ull 'ave to go without and lump it—as long as you're alive, miss, you mark my words!"
"Oh, Lor', you wor allus one for makin' a poor mouth, Patton!" said Mrs. Jellison. She had been sitting with her arms folded across her chest, part absent, part amused, part malicious. "The young lady speaks beautiful, just like a book she do. An' she's likely to know a deal better nor poor persons like you and me. All I kin say is,—if there's goin' to be dividin' up of other folks' property, when I'm gone, I hope George Westall won't get nothink ov it! He's bad enough as 'tis. Isabella 'ud have a fine time if ee took to drivin' ov his carriage."
The others laughed out, Marcella at their head, and Mrs. Jellison subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her eyes shining as though a host of entertaining notions were trooping through her—which, however, she preferred to amuse herself with rather than the public. Marcella looked at Patton thoughtfully.
"You've been all your life in this village, haven't you, Mr. Patton?" she asked him.
"Born top o' Witchett's Hill, miss. An' my wife here, she wor born just a house or two further along, an' we two bin married sixty-one year come next March."
He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver.
"D'ye know, miss," said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Patton, "as she kep' school when she was young?"
"Did you, Mrs. Patton?" asked Marcella in her tone of sympathetic interest. "The school wasn't very big then, I suppose?"
"About forty, miss," said Mrs. Patton, with a sigh. "There was eighteen the Rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid for, and the rest paid for themselves."