“Miss Margaret—a vine miss she be; zo grand. Lord, I minds when farmers’ daughters was Molly and Marjory, and no vine Miss about it. That ould Jane, the housekeeper at Fisher’s—warn you knaws her?—her tould zum on um, and zum on um told Mathew, as tould Betsy, as tould I.”
“Told what?” sharply.
“What I ses, to be zure. Miss and he wur out thegither a-main bit thuck night. ’Tain’t no use caddling I—I can’t tell ee no more. What, bean’t you going to carry that basket no furder?”
For as they reached the top of the hill, Valentine, angry now, handed it back to her; she barely took it, and made no sign of thanks.
“Mebbe you’ll give I a bit of snuff?” she said. He gave her a shilling and strode on swiftly, full of furious thoughts, the more so because all these innuendoes afforded nothing by which an open quarrel could be fixed on Geoffrey.
“This is intolerable,” he said to himself, “that he should make Margaret a common talk among these people. What on earth did the old woman allude to, and how came that earring lost?”
It was a pity that the Down adventure had been kept secret; and yet it was natural enough that it should be. The old woman, as Valentine walked rapidly on in the dusk, put the shilling in her pocket, readjusted her burden, and tottered on, muttering to herself, “The gurt chattering fool to come a’ hindering I!”