“Ay, and join the farms—there wadna be another property like it this side o’ Pateley Brigg.”
“He’s not sent thee?—Not he,” she said sourly; “I’d liefer he did his own courtin’.”
The farmer churned angrily, and she watched him keenly.
“Then by ——, he shall,” he cried, “or I’ll sell out and build a kirk!”
“Th’ Butlers’ll build a lot o’ kirks,” she remarked drily. “Wad I ha’ him? Well, I’ll answer him that when he asks me; but I’ll answer ye this now, Henry: They say th’ De’il likes to muck o’ a gurt lump, an’ th’ twa farms wad mak’ a pretty property; but a bonnie thing ’twad be to hear th’ love he’d whisper to th’ flawpin’ Lad-lass Harriet Stubbs! ‘My own four-hundred acre! My darlin’ twenty-score head o’ beasts! My lovely farm an’ house an’ first mortgage o’ three rows o’ cottages i’ Pateley Town!’ A bonnie wooin’!—When he whispered ‘Bessie!’ at th’ side o’ me at neet I’d say: ‘’Tisna Bessie, love; ’tis thy precious ninety pund a year i’ th’ bank; kiss thy owd Skipton market; kiss thy butter an’ eggs; kiss thy bit o’ horse-trade!’ A pretty wooin’!—Happen I’d see him lookin’ yonderly-like i’ th’ chimley-corner, thinkin’ why I didna bring him a bairn; I’d say, ‘There’s young blood an’ bairns enow; we’ll adopt one, an’ thou can call it Bessie.’—Tch!—’Tis naughbut ye owd nontkates that thinks all women’s th’ same i’ th’ dark! Wadna I ken? Wadna I ken when I were his Bessie? Wadna I brak my heart, bein’ his Bessie? Wadna I brak all three o’ we’r hearts?—Not I, as it chances, for I’m any kind o’ a fool but that kind, so get thy kirk built, Henry. They ha’na named me Lad-lass for naught.”
“Thou doesna ken right what thou’s sayin’,” said the farmer.
“No? So we live and learn, but I thought I did,” she replied imperturbably. “Now thou’s had thy bit crack, an’ there’ll be a mug o’ ale for thee at th’ loupin’-stane.—When wilt call an’ mak love o’ thy own account, Henry? ’Twad be a rare thing to be wed i’ your ain kirk.”
The farmer passed out, and she turned to the churn again.
The butter would not come, and now and then she muttered a man’s oath. The strip of shade outside the door became narrower as the sun crept round. A burnished cock mounted a fence and shrilled out a call that rang over the hot valley, and she unbuttoned her bodice at the throat and fumed.
Suddenly the figure of a girl appeared in the doorway.