'Where do'y come from, mistress? Over t'other side of the moor I reckon.'
Joyce was puzzled. Her geographical knowledge was too limited for her to know of France.
'I reckon that be a long way off, t'other side o' Prince's Town and the prisons, surely. Be there savages in them parts?'
'There be here. I be one. I be a Cobbledick, and the Cobbledicks be all savages. But vaither and I be better nor the rest out Nymet. They be savages and no mistake.'
'I say, young lady, is that man as they carried on the gate to West Wyke your vaither?'
'Did he bang you about much? Did he whack you often wi' a bunch of vuzz? Not but you'd mind over much wi' all them pack o' clothes to your back.'
'Did you have to rock him to sleep o' nights in a barril?'
'Mebbe you niver had much dodging out of the way of the stones he throwed at your head.'
'My old vaither doth all these to me. He whacks me wi' brimmles and vuzz, and he throws turves and stones at me, and I has to rock mun every night or he wouldn't sleep a wink. Of all the proper blaggards in the world there ain't an ekal to vaither. But I reckon vaithers is vaithers all the world over. They be all like oaksticks, some crookeder nor others, but none straight. You don't mind over much what has happened to yours?'
The young lady only imperfectly understood the girl, owing to the rudeness of her speech and her strong provincial brogue.
'There be my old vaither rolled out of his barril right across the high road, and I don't know if he've a broke his neck or no; and I don't kear hover much, no more nor you does because your vaither ha' gone and done the same.'
'I mean what I sez. I know what broke necks mean. I ha' broke the necks o' rabbits scores and scores o' times. Him's just the same, ivery bit and croome.'
The young lady shuddered. She did not cry, but her breath caught in her throat.
'Mon Dieu! Ce n'est pas vrai! Comme cette fille me fait peur!'
'What be that jabber about? You oughtn't to mind.'
'For the love of God, girl, do not frighten me. It is wicked--it is cruel. It is not true.'
'Not true!' echoed Joyce; 'I knows it be. I knows a broke neck in a man as in a rabbit.'
'Be quiet. If you want money, _en voilà_, take and leave me tranquil.'
'What'll you do wi' he now? Mother be poked under the hearthstone, where the fire can warm her. But when Old Grizzly goes, I shan't put he along o' mother. He can't sleep under the table now, and her'll lead'n a life of it, if he be put under the hearthstone along of she. Her niver worrits me, but her don't leave old vaither alone not one minnit of nights. Her does it because he knacked her, and beat her scores and scores o' times when her were alive. Now her thinks her turn be come. But her's got no vice in her. It be all play, only vaither be that crabbed he don't put up wi' it. When Old Grizzly goes, I'll up wi' his heels and send him into a bog once for all. He'll be wet and cold there I reckon, and the moss grows so thick over them quaking bogs, that once in there be no getting out, no more than when you're gone under the ice on Rayborough Pool. Then he'll leave me in peace I reckon.'