“Indeed I am afraid I shall always be a wild duck,” said Catherine.
“They are safer from the fowler,” said Jehu, “for they are wary and watchful.”
“If you are a widower,” she said, “you ought to dance.”
“Why do you think so?” said he; but his tongue was becoming thick, though his eyes were getting brighter.
“Because,” she said, “a widower is an odd critter.”
“Odd?” he replied, “in what way odd, dear?”
“Why,” said the girl, “an ox of ourn lately lost his mate, and my brother called him the odd ox, and not the single ox, and he is the most frolicksome fellow you ever see. Now, as you have lost your mate, you are an odd one, and if you are lookin’ for another to put its head into the yoke, you ought to go frolickin’ everywhere too!”
“Do single critters ever look for mates?” said he, slily.
“Well done,” said I, “friend Jehu. The drake had the best of the duck that time. Thee weren’t bred in Quaco for nothin’. Come, rouse up, wake snakes, and walk chalks, as the thoughtless children of evil say. I see thee is warmin’ to the subject.”
“Men do allow,” said he, lookin’ at me with great self-complacency, “that in speech I am peeowerful.”