“’Liza Rowles,” replied Selsey Bill, standing nearly two feet above her, but looking down with true deference, “if you feels that sort of thing, who am I to go again it? You are bound to have summat in your own mind, as was never put there for nothing, ma’am; and if it comes to that, why, so has I.”
“Do you mean to say, Bill,” asked Mrs. Rowles with awe, not of his height, for she was used to that, but of his thoughts coming just to her level, “that you has had queer ideas too, about what the little girl was a-telling me?”
“You have put it, ’Liza, in the very words as I should have put it in, if the Lord give me the power. But I leaves all that to my wife now. She can fit it up to meanin’, and no mistake.”
“Very well, Bill, there’s no more to be said. Off I goes with you, and you drives round by Struck-tree Cottage, as we calls it; not that we means to make tantrups, you know; but just to see how it looks, and ease our minds.”
Mrs. Rowles cast a glance at the high step of the cart, for she was not so tall as she was tender; and Selsey Bill cast a glance at her, balancing in the fine poise of his mind, whether or no he should venture to offer, as it were, to lift her. But he saw that it would not be just to his wife, who might come some day to hear of it—for you never can tell what those women will let out,—so he whipped forth his knife, and cut the cord which bound a dozen Sallies into one spire, and fetching out a basket, set it down upon the rim; so that Mrs. Rowles (though of good weight and measure) taking that for her first rung went up without a groan.
“You take next turn towards Harlington, and go along quiet as you can, Bill;” these were her orders, when she had settled down with a clean sack beneath her on the driving-board. “And now shall I tell you what I believe? It may be wrong, of course; we all are liable to horrors. You feels that yourself, Bill, though a man with such a family get’th more opportunities, so to say?”
“And a wife,” answered Bill; “her comes first to begin with.”
“In course, her comes first in the regular way. A good and faithful wife, and the mother of seventeen. But without such luck as that, I knows what men is; and I say to you, Bill Tompkins, that they differs very much. I makes the very best of them, as is the duty of a woman, and leads to their repentance, when they has it in them. But most of them has not, without a word against my Teddy. And I say that this Lord Hopscotch here—if such is his name, being very doubtful—is up to some badness, having no belief of any one down this way to right it. Therefore you take that corner, Bill, and go on slowly till I tell you when to stop. Mind, I don’t say I know what it is; but I can guess. We have had a many gay doings down this way, for all it looks so innocent, and perhaps for that same reason.”
“What can ’em want with more childers, if that way inclined?” But the quiverful Bill dropped his essay on that subject; for there is much more bashfulness among poor people, than among their betters, on such topics of discourse.
Presently they came to a dark, quiet elbow of the road, or rather of the track across the turf; for they had passed all stones and hedges now, and the wheels went softly upon the grass and peat. A clump of Scotch firs, bowed by the west winds, overhung the way, and made it sombre as the grave. About a hundred yards before them was a low square building, on the verge of the heath, and surrounded with bushes and something that looked like a wooden palisade.