"And do they help you on the farm?"
"Yes—leastways four of 'em do. Two have—have left home."
"I suppose they didn't care for farming?"
"One's in prison, and t'other I turned away."
Reuben had no idea why he said this. It must have been the way her eyes were fixed on him, glowing above bistred shadows.
"Oh, indeed!—how sad."
He flushed the colour of her apron. What a fool he was!—and yet after all she would be bound to hear the truth sooner or later; he had only been beforehand. All the same he was surprised at himself. A sudden tide of anger went over him.
"Sad fur them, I reckon, but not fur me. I'm well shut of them."
"Don't you miss them at all?"
"Naun particular. Robert he wur good and plodding-like, but you couldn't trust his stacking, and he'd be all nohow wud the horses—and Albert he'd shirk everything wotsumdever, he'd go off into dreams in the middle of killing a pig—surelye!"