"What! as a drawing master? I'd as lief he played the fiddle and taught dancing."
"How can you say that, Simon?"
"Because it is what I feels. Here he had a good farm, a good inn, and a good business—one that don't dwindle but is on the increase, and the land bettering every day—and yet off he went, chucked aside the blessin's of Providence, to take up wi' scribblin' and scrawlin' on paper. If it weren't a thing altogether shameful it would be clear ridic'lous."
Simon sucked in smoke enough to fill his lungs, and then blew it forth leisurely in a long spiral.
"Odds' life," said he, "I don't see why I shu'd concern myself about the hay, nor anythin' else. I've enough to live upon and to enjye myself. What more do I want now?"
"What more?" inquired the landlady, with a sigh and a catch in her voice—a sigh of sorrow, a catch of resentment. "What more—when your son is away?"
"Whose fault is that? Home weren't good enough for he. Even the Old Ship on the sign-board didn't give him satisfaction, and he must alter it. I don't see why I should worrit myself about the hay or any other thing. I'll just put up my feet an enjye myself."
"Simon, I pray you answer Iver's letter. Opportunities be like fleas, to be took sharp, or away they goes, they be terrible long-legged. Opportunities only come now and then, and if not caught are lost past recall. 'Twas so wi' Temperance Noakes, who might a' had the chimbley-sweep if she'd a kissed him when he axed. But she said, Wipe and wash your face fust—and she's an old maid now, and goin' sixty. Consider, Simon. Iver be your son, your only child. It's Providence makes us wot we is; that's why you're a man and not a woman. Iver hadn't a gift to be a farmer, but he had to paintin'. It can't be other—it's Providence orders all, or you might be a mother and nursin' a baby, and I smokin' and goin' after the plough in leggin's."
"That's all gammon," growled the landlord.
"We be gettin' old," pursued Mrs. Verstage. "In the end you'll have to give up work, and who but Iver is to come after you here?"