“The principle is the same.”
“Well—ay: what did she say? Let’s see. I was oiling my working-day boots without taking ’em off, and wi’ my head hanging down, when she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. ‘Ann,’ I said, says I, and then,—but, Dick I’m afeard ’twill be no help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, that is myself—and your mother’s charms was more in the manner than the material.”
“Never mind! ‘Ann,’ said you.”
“‘Ann,’ said I, as I was saying . . . ‘Ann,’ I said to her when I was oiling my working-day boots wi’ my head hanging down, ‘Woot hae me?’ . . . What came next I can’t quite call up at this distance o’ time. Perhaps your mother would know,—she’s got a better memory for her little triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o’ the story is that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. ’Twas on White Tuesday,—Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, and a fine day ’twas,—hot as fire,—how the sun did strike down upon my back going to church! I well can mind what a bath o’ sweating I was in, body and soul! But Fance will ha’ thee, Dick—she won’t walk with another chap—no such good luck.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Dick, whipping at Smart’s flank in a fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with going on. “There’s Pa’son Maybold, too—that’s all against me.”
“What about he? She’s never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that he’s in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o’ maidens!”
“No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me in such a way—quite different the ways were,—and as I was coming off, there was he hanging up her birdcage.”
“Well, why shouldn’t the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all, what’s that got to do wi’ it? Dick, that thou beest a white-lyvered chap I don’t say, but if thou beestn’t as mad as a cappel-faced bull, let me smile no more.”
“O, ay.”
“And what’s think now, Dick?”