“ ’Twon’t get out for me,” said Mildred, looking hard at him.
“One devil drubs another, they say, and if the young Squire upstairs has a foot in the mud I’ve one in the mire,” said Harry. “If his hat has a hole, my shoe has another. And ’tis a bad bargain where both are losers.”
“Well, I can’t see it nohow. I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at; but I think you’re no fool, Master Harry; ye never was that, and it’s a cunning part, I’ve heered, to play the fool well.”
And Harry did look very cunning as she cited this saw, and for a moment also a little put out. But he quickly resumed, and staring in her face surlily, said he—
“Well, I am cunnin’; I hope I am; and you’re a little bit that way yourself, old Mildred; no fool, anyhow, that ever I could see.”
“Crafty I may be, I ha’ lived years and seen folk enough to make me, but my heart weren’t set never on pelf.
‘A thousand pounds and a bottle of hay
Is all one at doom’s-day.’ ”
“So it is,” said he, “but there’s a good many days ’twixt this and doom’s-day yet, and money’ll do more than my lord’s letter, any place, and I’ll not deny I’d like Wyvern well enough if my hand was free to lay on it. But I a’ thought it well over, and it wouldn’t fit me nohow. I can’t.”
“Ye’re the first Fairfield I ever heered say that Wyvern wouldn’t fit him,” said she.
“Is that beer in the jug?” he asked, nodding toward a brown jug that stood on the dresser.
“Yes, sir. Would ye like a drink?”
“Ay, if it baint stale.”
“Fresh drew, just as you was coming in, sir,” said she, setting it down on the table. “I’ll fetch ye a glass.”
“Never mind a glass, a rantin’ dog like me can drink out of a well-bucket, much less a brown jug,” and clutching it carelessly by the handle he quaffed as long and deep a draught as his ancestor and namesake might after his exhausting flight from Worcester a couple of hundred years before.
“You are puzzled, old girl, and don’t know whether I be in jest or earnest. But, good or bad, wives must be had—you know, and you never heard of a Fairfield yet that was lucky in a wife, or hadn’t a screw loose sometime about they sort o’ cattle; and ye’re an old servant, Mildred, and though you be a bit testy, you’re true, and I may tell ye things I wouldn’t tell no one, not the Governor, not my little finger; I’d burn my shirt if it knew; and ye won’t tell no one, upon your soul, and as ye hope to be saved?”
“I can keep counsel, I’m good at that,” said Mildred.
“Well, I need not say no more than this: there’s them that’s quiet enough now, and will be, that if they thought I was Squire o’ Wyvern I’d make the world too hot to hold me. I’d rather be Harry Fairfield at fair and market than archbishop of hell, I can tell ye, havin’ no likin’ for fine titles and honour, and glory, wi’ a tethered leg and a sore heart; better to go your own gait, and eat your mouthful where ye find it, than go in gold wi’ a broken back, that’s all, and that’s truth. If ’twas otherwise I’d be down in the mouth, I can tell you, about the young genman upstairs, and I’d a’ liked his birthday no better than a shepherd loves a bright Candlemas; but as it is—no matter, ’tis better to me than a pot o’ gold, and I drink the little chap’s health, and I wish she had a sieve full o’ them, and that’s God’s truth, as I stand here,” and Harry backed the declaration with an oath.
“Well, I believe you, Harry,” said Mildred.
“And I’m glad o’t,” she added after a pause.
“I’m very glad—there has been ill blood o’er much in the family,” she resumed; “it’s time there should be peace and brotherhood, God knows—and—I’m glad to hear you speak like that, sir.”
And, so saying, she extended her dark, hard palm to him, and he took it, and laughed.
“Every man knows where his own shoe pinches,” said he; “ ’tis a shrewish world, old girl, and there’s warts and chilblains where no one guesses, but things won’t be forever; ’tis a long lane, ye know, that has no turning, and the burr won’t stick always.”
“Ay, ay, Master Harry, as I’ve heard the old folks say, ‘Be the day never so long, at last cometh evensong.’ ”
“And how is the lady herself?” said he.
“As bad as can be, a’most,” answered Mildred.
“Who says so?” he asked.
“The doctor; he has no opinion of her, I’m afeared, poor little thing.”
“The doctor—does he?—but is he any good?”
“It’s Doctor Willett, of Wykeford. He’s thought a deal of by most folk down here. I don’t know, I’m sure, but he seems very nice about her, I think, and kind, and looks after the baby too.”
“That’s right; I’m glad o’ that. I’d pay something myself rather than it should be neglected; and what does he say o’ the boy?”
“Doin’ very well—nothin’ against him; but, you know, ’tis only a few days, and o’er soon to judge yet a bit.”
“I wonder could she see me for a minute?”
“Hoot, man! How came that in your head? Why, the room’s dark, and she never speaks above a whisper, and not five words then, and only, maybe, thrice in a day. Ye don’t know what way she is; ’tis just the turn o’ a halfpenny whether she’ll live till mornin’.”
“That’s bad. I didn’t think she could be that bad,” said he.
“She is, then.”
“ ’Twould do her no harm to know that there’s some rent—about thirty pounds—due from Riddleswake. I’ll give Tom a bit of a note to Farmer Wycraft, and he’ll pay it. It’s settled to her for her life—I know that—and she’ll be wantin’ money; and see
