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"Why, sir," said the old man, frank as a child, "the Captain were standin by my gun in the waist, where he'd no business to ha been reelly by rights. Flop I goes on the broad o my back, when it took me. He was down on his knees beside me in a second, dabbin with his little handkercher.
She's been bawled at, and sworn at enough too, and her that gentle and pleasant." "She's cryin' in her room now," said the housemaid, dabbin' her eyes with her handkerchief and wishin' he'd come up and rage over anything." "O, is she?" said the cook. "I'll bet she's not. The house is so quiet it makes her nervous that's all! But she'll get used to it.
Halliday asked what had occupied him in town, and he told her about his plans. Evelyn looked interested. "If you begin your dyke where you propose, won't Shanks' dabbin be in the way?" "The dabbin must come down," Jim replied. A question from Mrs. Halliday led to his relating his interview with Shanks, and Evelyn said, "Could you not have left the old man his cottage?
But how many pheasants did you get?" "Nobbut two. T' birds is varra scarce." "Then I don't see why you ran the risk of stealing Langrigg pheasants when there are plenty in Red Bank woods." Shanks was silent for a moment or two, and then replied, as if Mordaunt's carelessness had banished his doubts: "Mr. Dearham put us oot o' dabbin and blew 't up."
Shanks gave no sign that he meant to move, until one morning Jim's teamster asked: "Am I to gan t' dabbin and tak' a load to Bank-end?" Jim told him to go and turned to Jake. "That's fixed! I've been holding back for a day or two and now we can push ahead. The dabbin must come down before we stop to-night." In the evening, Jake and Carrie went with him across the marsh.
Carrie was silent for a moment, thinking about Evelyn. The girl had, so to speak, dazzled Jim. Carrie did not approve, but could not meddle. "I wonder!" she remarked. "Anyhow you must hustle. It's getting dark." After a few minutes Jim lighted the fuse and they went out and stood some distance off. The light had nearly gone, and the dabbin loomed dark and desolate against a belt of tossing reeds.
The workmen had gone but wheelbarrows, spades, and planks lay about, and a bank of fresh soil touched the edge of the neglected garden. Gray clouds drifted across the gloomy sky, a cold wind tossed the reeds, and the dabbin looked strangely forlorn in the fading light. Carrie shivered as she entered with Jim, who carried a coil of fuse and a tin box.
The dabbin must come down and when you're ready to move to Bank-end you can tell my teamster to take your household fixings along. If this doesn't meet the bill, I'll give you a hundred pounds and you can go where you like." Shanks said nothing and Jim went off. When they were out of hearing Jake remarked: "I allow you had to be firm, but I don't like it, Jim.
A window was broken and the door hung crookedly. Except for a few rows of withered potatoes, the garden was occupied by weeds. Three or four shellducks, hatched from wild birds' eggs, paddled about the creek. "Shanks' dabbin; his father squatted here," Jim remarked. "I reckon I'm going to have trouble with the fellow." He opened the broken gate and two men came out.
How would you like to own him? a woman in the next box says to her. "'I'd love it, says Miss Goodloe, 'n' busts out cryin'. 'You'll think I'm an awful baby! she says to me. "'I don't mind them kind of tears, I says. "'Neither do I, she says, laughin', 'n' dabbin' at her face with a dinky little hankerchiff.
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