"
"No, no, my Lady," said Mrs. Fry very confidently. "He can scream and
holly loud enough. I bate mun last night, poor soul, because he
wouldn't spake, and he scritched so loud that Mrs. Mugford come in, and
asked me what I was 'bout killing a pig at that time o' night; though
she knows very well that it was my pig that was drownded in the
mill-leat back along in the spring. So I says to her, 'Mrs. Mugford,'
I says, 'if those that talks about pigs would look to their own boys,
they wouldn't run off to sea and come home with the shakums,' I says;
'and if they would keep their fowls from scratting about in their
neighbours' gardens,' I says, 'they wouldn't run about crying for lost
chimases.' For there's hardly a day but I drive her fowls from my
garden, my Lady. And you mind her son, my Lady, him that went for a
marine, and what terrible shakums he had when he comed back from the
Injies. And I consider that they stolen chimases is a jidgment, my
Lady, a jidgment for the mischief her fowls have done in my garden--"
"Stop, stop," said Lady Eleanor, whose eye had wandered to a shady spot
under the trees where the Corporal was lunging a steady old Exmoor pony
round and round, while Dick, with a pair of long gaiters added to his
attire, sat firmly on its back, though without saddle or stirrups.
"Tell me; has anything happened to the boy to frighten him?"
"Well, my Lady," answered Mrs.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36