“Ay?—Tak’ a turn at th’ kern, for ye could wring my shift.”
The farmer took the poss-stick in his knotted hands, and she mopped her freckled brow with her apron; then she sat a-straddle on the corner of the stone table and said: “what’s wrang wi’ Harry?”
“Wrang?” said the farmer, making the churn rock with his energy. “And what should be wrang wi’ short o’ ane-and-twenty but ye perdition women?”
“Ay,” said Harriet composedly, “we’re winsome things, an’ ye canna resist us; not that I’ve seen ye sweat overmuch wi’ trying. Is’t——?”
“Ay, is’t: yon black-haired besom, Bessie Wyatt; but th’ sullen trash is packing to-neet.”
“Packin’! An’ what’s Harry say?”
Farmer Butler scowled out over the hot stackyard.
“’Tis what I cam’ to talk to ye aboot.—Now i’ one word, Harriet: wad ye ha’ him?”
A little blood came into her dry cheeks.
“Ha’ him? Dost mean wed him?”