"Do you give it your time? You were best take heed, for else it is like to slip away from you," she said; and he thought she spoke rather coldly, and as if her warning were meant to convey something more than appeared.
And then she added:
"You were at Wilmecote on Tuesday?"
"You must have heard why, Judith," he said. "Old Pike was married again that day, and they would have me over to his wedding."
"And on the Wednesday, what was there at Bidford, then, that you must needs be gone when my mother sent to you?"
"At Bidford?" said he (and he was sorely puzzled as to whether he should rejoice at these questions as betraying a friendly interest in his affairs, or rather regarded them as conveying covert reproof, and expressing her dissatisfaction with him, and distrust of him). "At Bidford, Judith—well, there was business as well as pleasure there. For you must know that Daniel Hutt is come home for a space from the new settlements in Virginia, and is for taking back with him a number of laborers that are all in due time to make their fortunes there. Marry, 'tis a good chance for some of them, for broken men are as welcome as any, and there are no questions asked as to their having been intimate with the constable and the justice. So there was a kind of merry-meeting of Daniel's old friends, that was held at the Falcon at Bidford—and the host is a good customer of mine, so it was prudent of me to go thither—and right pleasant was it to hear Daniel Hutt tell of his adventures by sea and shore. And he gave us some of the tobacco that he had brought with him. And to any that will go back with him to Jamestown he promises allotments of land, though at first there will be tough labor, as he says, honestly. Oh, a worthy man is this Daniel Hutt, though, as yet his own fortune seems not so secure."
"With such junketings," said she, with ever so slight a touch of coldness, "'tis no wonder you could not spare the time to come and see my father on the evening of his getting home."
"There, now, Judith!" he exclaimed. "Would you have me break in upon him at such a busy season, when even you yourself are careful to refrain? It had been ill-mannered of me to do such a thing; but 'twas no heedlessness that led to my keeping away, as you may well imagine."
"It is difficult to know the reasons when friends hold aloof," said she. "You have not been near the house for two or three weeks, as I reckon."
And here again he would have given much to know whether her speech—which was curiously reserved in tone—meant that she had marked these things out of regard for him, or that she wished to reprove him.