“Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind.”
“A true man, and proud as a lucifer.”
“You see the artfulness? Why, ’twas about being baily really; but I didn’t put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth!... However, let her marry an she will. Perhaps ’tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t’other day—that I do.”
“What a lie!” said Gabriel.
“Ah, neighbour Oak—how’st know?” said, Henery, mildly.
“Because she told me all that passed,” said Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter.
“Ye have a right to believe it,” said Henery, with dudgeon; “a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a baily’s place is a poor mere trifle—yet a trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads.”
“O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye.”
“A strange old piece, goodmen—whirled about from here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no—O no!”
“A strange old piece, ye say!” interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. “At the same time ye be no old man worth naming—no old man at all. Yer teeth bain’t half gone yet; and what’s a old man’s standing if so be his teeth bain’t gone? Weren’t I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? ’Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there’s people far past four-score—a boast weak as water.”