“True; your mother was a very good woman—I can mind her. She were rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest number of healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous marvels.”
“’Twas that that kept us so low upon ground—that great hungry family.”
“Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin.”
“And dostn’t mind how mother would sing, Christopher?” continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; “and how we went with her to the party at Mellstock, do ye mind?—at old Dame Ledlow’s, farmer Shinar’s aunt, do ye mind?—she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were so yaller and freckled, do ye mind?”
“I do, hee-hee, I do!” said Christopher Coney.
“And well do I—for I was getting up husband-high at that time—one-half girl, and t’other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind”—she prodded Solomon’s shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the crevices of their lids—“canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through the mud; and how ’a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple’s cow-barton, and we had to clane her gown wi’ grass—never such a mess as ’a were in?”
“Ay—that I do—hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them ancient days, to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can hardly step over a furrow!”
Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited pair—Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze of his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another fiery disdain.
“Well—there’s a difference between ’em, though he do call himself a teetotaller,” said Nance Mockridge. “She’ll wish her cake dough afore she’s done of him. There’s a blue-beardy look about ’en; and ’twill out in time.”
“Stuff—he’s well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn’t wish for a better man. A poor twanking woman like her—’tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of jumps or night-rail to her name.”