gaze.
'For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose.'
'Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!' And the tranter gave vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were his own.
'Whether or no,' said Dick, 'I asked her a thing going along the road.'
'Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, she's ready, I don't doubt?'
'I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me speak, I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?'
'Piph-ph-ph!'
'And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she didn't know.
Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of that speech?' The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn't care for the ridicule of all the fathers in creation.
'The meaning of that speech is,' the tranter replied deliberately, 'that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as an honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know well enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody.'
'But what d'ye think she really did mean?' said the unsatisfied Dick.
'I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I was not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only 'ooman I ever cam' into such close quarters as that with.'
'And what did mother say to you when you asked her?' said Dick musingly.
'I don't see that that will help 'ee.'
'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?'
'I don't know.'
'Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's the bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?'
'No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose.'
'Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to see her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her young fingers rum-strumming upon the keys.'
A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this communication from his father. 'Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not it; I don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a bold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, and had taken it kindly. Pooh!'
'Who's to say she didn't?'
'I do.'
'The more fool you.'
'Why, father of me?'
'Has she ever done more to thee?'
'No.'
'Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a maid is. She'll swear she's dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over t'other shoulder at another young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the same.' 'She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look
