"Where be Bonduca?" said Abraham, shifting his body upon his chair so as
to bring his wife's faded tints better into view. "Like enough she's met
in with that slack-twisted 'hor's bird of a feller, Tom Tatters. And
she'll let the sheep draggle round the hills. My soul, but I'd like to
baste 'en for a poor slammick of a chap."
Mrs. Peep smiled feebly. She had had her troubles. Like other realities,
they took on themselves a metaphysical mantle of infallibility, sinking
to minor cerebral phenomena for quiet contemplation. She had no notion
how they did this. And, it must be added, that they might, had they felt
so disposed, have stood as pressing concretions which chafe body and
soul--a most disagreeable state of things, peculiar to the miserably
passive existence of a Wessex peasant woman.
"Bonduca went early," she said, adding, with a weak irrelevance, "she
mid 'a' had her pick to-day. A mampus o' men have bin after
her--fourteen o' 'em, all the best lads round about, some of 'em wi'
bags and bags of gold to their names, and all wanting Bonduca to be
their lawful wedded wife."
Abraham shifted again. A cunning smile played about the hard lines of
his face. "Polly," he said, bringing his closed fist down upon his knee
with a sudden violence, "you pick the richest, and let him carry Bonduca
to the pa'son. Good looks wear badly, and good characters be of no
account; but the gold's the thing for us. Why," he continued,
meditatively, "the old house could be new thatched, and you and me live
like Lords and Ladies, away from the mulch o' the barton, all in silks
and satins, wi' golden crowns to our heads, and silver buckles to our
feet."
Polly nodded eagerly. She was a Wessex woman born, and thoroughly
understood the pure and unsophisticated nature of the Wessex peasant.