“Holy water! Oh, ho, ho! Holy to old Nick, I reckon; and that be why her boileth over so. Three wells there be in a row, you know, Miss, all from that same spring I count; the well in Parson’s garden, and this, and the uppest one, under the foot of your hill, above where that gipsy boy harboureth. That be where the Woeburn breaketh ground.”
“You mean where the moss, and the cotton-grass is. But you can scarcely call it a well there now.”
“It dothn’t run much, very like; and I ha’n’t been up that way for a year or more. But only you try to walk over it, child; and you’d walk into your grave, I hold. The time is nigh up for it to come out, according to what they tells of it.”
“Very well, Nanny, let it come out. What a treat it would be this hot summer! The Adur is almost dry, and the shepherd-pits everywhere are empty.”
“Then you pay no heed, child, what is to come of it, if it ever comes out again. Worse than ever comed afore to such a lot as you be.”
“I cannot well see how it could be worse than death, and dearth, and slaughter, Nanny.”
“Now, that shows how young girls will talk, without any thought of anything. To us poor folk it be wise and right to put life afore anything, according to natur’; and arter that, the things as must go inside of us. There let me think, let me think a bit. I forgets things now; but I know there be some’at as you great folks count more than life, and victuals, and natur’, and everythin’. But I forgets the word you uses for it.”
“Honour, Nanny, I suppose you mean—the honour, of course, of the family.”
“May be, some’at of that sort, as you builds up your mind upon. Well, that be running into danger now, if the old words has any truth in ’em.”
“Nonsense, Nanny, I’ll not listen to you. Which of us is likely to disgrace our name, pray? I am tired of all these nursery stories. Good-bye, Mrs. Stilgoe.”