A few days later, he called the charwoman to him as she was going to the pump.
'What is your name?'
'Susan Underwood. I'm a married woman, with three small children, and another on its way.'
He fumbled in his pocket, and took out a crown.
'Any news?—from Mersea, I mean.'
'I don't come from Mersea. Thank your honour all the same.'
'But if there were news there it would get to Virley or Salcott, or wherever you live.'
'It would be sure. I did hear,' she said, 'that Farmer Pooley has been a-wisiting a little more nor he ought at widow Siggars' cottage, her as has a handsome daughter, and so, they do say, has Farmer Pudney; and the other day they met there, and was so mad each to find the other, that the one up with his hunting whip and the other with his bible and knocked each other down, and each had to be carried home on a shutter.'
'Go and tell those tales to the old woman upstairs. I have no patience to listen to them. That's the sort of garbage women feed on, as maggots on rotten meat.'
'But it is true.'