“Well, I don’t agree wi’ he,” responded Betty with some heat.  She had sons of her own who were occasionally given to strolling abroad on moonlight nights, and usually returned with bulging pockets.  “I don’t agree at all.  The Lard made they little wild things for the poor so well as for the rich—­same as the water what runs through Squire’s park an’ down along by the back o’ my place.  Who’s to tell who they belongs to.  A hare ‘ull lep up on one side o’ the hedge, an’ then it’ll be Squire’s, an’ it’ll run across t’other side, an’ then it’s Maister’s, an’ then it’ll come an’ squat down in my cabbage garden—­then I d’ ’low ’tis mine if I can catch it.”

Mrs. 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.  “Ye mind Abel Guppy what went off to the war out there abroad wi’ the Yeomanry?  Well, they d’ say he be killed.”

“Dear, now, ye don’t tell I so,” said the other in a dispassionate, and if truth be told, somewhat disappointed tone.  A death, though always exciting, was not after all so very uncommon, and when a man “’listed for a soldier,” most of the older village folk looked upon his destruction as a foregone conclusion.  “Killed, poor young chap!  His aunt Susan ’ull be terrible opset.”

“I d’ ’low she will be opset,” said Betty meaningly, “and it bain’t only along of him bein’ killed, poor feller, but you’d never think, Mrs. Haskell, how things have a-turned out.  Ye mind that maid up to Bartlett’s what he was a-courtin’?”

“‘E-es, to be sure I do.  A great big bouncin’ wench as ever I did see, wi’ her red head an’ all.”

“Well, it seems afore poor Abel went out he wrote a paper an’ give it to this ‘ere maid, a-leavin’ her everything as the poor chap had in the world.”

“Mercy on me!  But she be a-walkin’ out wi’ somebody else they tell me; she’ve a-took up wi’ the noo love afore she did leave off wi’ the wold.”

“She have,” agreed the visitor emphatically.  “That be the very thing Susan ’ull find so cruel ’ard.  She did say to I to-week afore she knowed her nevvy were killed, ‘If any harm comes to en,’ says she, ’it do fair break my heart to think as that good-for-nothing Jenny Pitcher ’ull have her pick of everything in this place.  It bain’t the same as if she’d truly m’urned for en, but she’ve a-taken up wi’ a new young man,’ says she, ‘what walks out wi’ her reg’lar.’—­’My dear,’ says I, ’if anything should happen to your nevvy, which the Lard forbid, she’ll never have the face to come to ax for his bits o’ things, seein’ as she haven’t been faithful to en.’  ‘She will though,’ says Susan, an’ ‘tis the talk o’ the place that she will.’”

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?”