"Take that!" said she, almost breathless, "to teach thee how thou
darest make a fool of an honest woman old enough to be thy mother.
If thou com'st a step nearer the house, there's a good horse-pool,
and there's two stout fellows who'll like no better fun than ducking
thee. Be off wi' thee!"
And she strode into her own premises, never looking round to see
whether he obeyed her injunction or not.
Sometimes three or four years would pass over without her hearing
Michael Hurst's name mentioned. She used to wonder at such times
whether he were dead or alive. She would sit for hours by the dying
embers of her fire on a winter's evening, trying to recall the scenes
of her youth; trying to bring up living pictures of the faces she had
then known--Michael's most especially. She thought it was possible,
so long had been the lapse of years, that she might now pass by him
in the street unknowing and unknown. His outward form she might not
recognize, but himself she should feel in the thrill of her whole
being. He could not pass her unawares.
What little she did hear about him, all testified a downward
tendency. He drank--not at stated times when there was no other work
to be done, but continually, whether it was seed-time or harvest.
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