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"You be in luck, Jim," Giles exclaimed as the matron closed the door. "You've turned up a Jack!" "Have ye heard the noos?" said Betty Tuffin, thrusting in her head at old Mrs. Haskell's open door. "Lard, no, my dear," returned her crony, hastily dropping the crooked iron bar with which she had been drawing together the logs upon her hearthstone.
Betty Tuffin, who, as a lone woman, could not in justice to herself refuse any paying job, however little she might approve of her employer, had been left to take care of the house and to assist in preparing the refreshments, As the little party approached the cottage door they were surprised to see her standing on the threshold, now portentously wagging her black-capped head, now burying her face in her apron, evidently a prey to strong emotion, though of what particular kind it was difficult to say.
He didn't think it right for I to walk so far by myself. Did ye, Sam?" "Well, now ye can walk back wi' her," said Susan, addressing that gentleman before he had time to answer. "I don't want no tears a-mingled here. Who be that by the gate?" "'Tis me, Betty Tuffin," returned the owner of that name. "I didn't come wi' these 'ere young folks don't think it, my dear.
Mrs. Haskell clapped her hands together. "Well, well! But what a sammy the chap was. He did ought to ha' made sure afore makin' sich a will. It be a will, I suppose, my dear?" "It be a will sure enough," said Mrs. Tuffin gloomily. "There, Susan did tell I as that there artful hussy made sure he got it signed an' all reg'lar.
Tuffin commiseratingly; "but I don't advise 'ee to do it, my dear 'twouldn't be safe, an' you'd be bound to give 'em up one time or another. I d' 'low that maid be a-actin' as she be to spite ye more nor anythin' else; the more unwillin' you be, the more she'm pleased." "Very like," agreed Susan.
"Maybe it would," said Miss Vacher dubiously, though with a latent gleam of malice in her eye. "Take my advise an' do it then," urged Mrs. Tuffin earnestly. "Make the best of a bad job an' turn the tables on she. All the village 'ull be mad wi' her the tale 'ull be in every one's mouth." Miss Vacher compressed her lips and meditatively rubbed her hands.
As the young man tapped at the door Jenny turned and descried Betty's figure by the garden-gate. "Is it you, Mrs. Tuffin?" she inquired. "I can scarce see who 'tis wi' the sun shinin' in my eyes. Be you a-goin' in?" "It's me," responded Betty tartly, in reply to the first question, while she dismissed the second with an equally curt "I be."
Haskell, who was too anxious to gossip to dally by the way in a disquisition on the Game Laws, assented to her friend's argument with somewhat disappointing promptness, and returned to the original subject of discussion. "I be real curious to hear that there bit o' noos." "You'll be surprised I d' 'low," said Mrs. Tuffin.
No fire, no wine or spirits, or medicine of any kind, and no person being within a call, but luckily, perhaps the occasion would better suit the word providentially, Tuffin, calling, took me home with him.... I tremble at every loud sound I myself utter. But this is rather a history of the past than of the present.
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