“Of course Baldwin had to take hold again then, for by this time Tom was at t’ last gasp, and to mend matters he died afore Maniwel came out o’ t’ hospital. When they read his will it turned out ’at he’d left all his brass to his lass, but part on it was to stop i’ t’ business for capital. And he left t’ goodwill o’ t’ business to him ’at ’ad made t’ most brass during t’ year he’d been i’ charge, barring ’at he’d to pay his lass part o’ t’ profits. It was all worked out by a lawyer so as Nancy wasn’t a partner, you understand; but she must ha’ done fairly well, for Baldwin’s made brass, there’s no question o’ that.”
“Then Baldwin got the business, you say?”
“More’n that,” continued the landlord; “he’d to be guardian to t’ lass. She wouldn’t be more’n eleven or twelve at t’ time, and Baldwin wasn’t a married man, but he took t’ job on, I can tell you.”
“And what about Maniwel?” inquired Inman. “Was there no law over t’ job? If it had been me I should ha’ tried to make a case out.”
“Maniwel’s no fighting man,” the landlord replied, “and he was on his back. But there was them ’at ’ud have made a fight for him if he’d ha’ let ’em. All t’ same t’ lawyers said Baldwin was in t’ right.”
“Pigeon livers run in families,” said Inman. “I could have guessed father when I saw son. But what of the girl, landlord? It was a mad whim of the father to hand her over in a haphazard sort of way to the highest bidder, and one of his own workmen at that. How did the lass take it? Was she dove or donkey—lamb or lion?”
The landlord spat into the fire and withheld reply for some moments.
“You mun ask someb’dy ’at knows better ’n me,” he said at length cautiously. “Nancy’s as deep as t’ Tarn, and as proud and hot-tempered as a broody hen. She stops with him, anyway, though she’s been her own missus a year and more. Some say they fratch like two bantams, but I’ve never come across them ’at’s heard ’em; and as for Keturah Briggs—that’s Baldwin’s sister ’at’s always kept house for him—she’s a quarry you can neither pick nor blast. They keep theirselves _to_ theirselves, and give naught away, does t’ Briggses.”
“And is she content, this Nancy,” inquired Inman indifferently, “to be shut up in a village like this? Has she no desire, think you, to see the world and have her fling like other lasses?”