Jonas was a bachelor. His father and mother were dead, and his sister had married one of the Rocliffe's. He lived alone in his tolerably substantial house, and his sister came in when she was able to put it tidy for him and to do some necessary cooking. He was regarded as close-fisted though young; his age about twenty-three years. Hitherto no girl had caught his fancy, or had caught it sufficiently to induce him to take one to wife.
"Tell'y what," said his sister, "you'll be nothing else but an old hudger (bachelor)."
This was coming to be a general opinion. Jonas Kink had a heart for money, and for that only. He sneered at girls and flouted them. It was said that Jonas would marry no girl save for her money, and that a monied girl might pick and choose for herself, and such as she would most assuredly not make election of Bideabout. Consequently he was foredoomed to be a "hudger."
"What's that?" suddenly exclaimed the Broom-Squire, who led the way along a footpath on the side of the steep slope.
"It's a dead sheep, I fancy, Bideabout."
"A dead sheep—I wonder if it be mine. Hold hard, what's that noise?"
"It's like a babe's cry," said the boy. "Oh, lawk! if it be dead and ha' become a wanderer! I shu'd never have the pluck to go home alone."
"Get along with your wanderers. It's arrant nonsense. I don't believe a word of it."
"But there is the crying again. It is near at hand. Oh, Bideabout!
I be that terrified!"
"I'll strike a light. I'm not so sure about this being a dead sheep."