LAMBING time is a very important epoch to farming folk, and particularly
to farming folk in Dorset. The popular idea which associates the advent
of these innocents with primroses and daffodils, budding hedges, and all
the other adjuncts of spring does not obtain in this pre-eminently
sheep-rearing county. It is in November when days are at their shortest,
when the earth is at its barest, when cold rain falls, and not
infrequently sleet or “snow-stuff,” as it is locally called, that the
misguided younglings of the flock look their first upon a sodden and
gloomy world. Midway in October their quarters are got in readiness,
preferably in a corner of some upland field; the shepherd’s wheeled hut
takes up its position in the midst of a sheltered space in the lewth of
the hedge, straw-padded hurdles mark the enclosure, and sundry pens are
made ready for the new arrivals and their dams. By day the shepherd
himself may be seen, crook in hand and dog at heel, taking stock of his
premises; and often at dusk the uncertain light of his lantern may be
noted from afar.
On one particularly gloomy November evening young Timothy Kiddle, Farmer
Hounsell’s new shepherd, made a careful inspection of his charges,
lantern in hand; and after completing the tour of the fold sat down in an
angle of the hurdle fence to smoke a quiet pipe. His hut had not yet
been conveyed to its destined site, and till now he had slept at home;
but one of the ewes seemed somewhat uneasy in her mind, and all things
considered Timothy decided that it would be better to spend the night
amid his charges.
He intended, of course, to watch, but having been exceptionally busy all
day, soon dozed, and presently indeed fell into a sound sleep. This was
no doubt highly reprehensible under the circumstances, particularly when
one remembers that a lighted pipe was between his teeth, and that the
whole place was strewn with straw.
He awoke with a start and a terrific throb of conscience, and was
relieved to find himself in the dark; his pipe had dropped harmlessly
into his lap, and the very lantern had burnt itself out. He rolled on to
his knees, feeling cramped after his long sitting, and was about to stand
upright when his attention was suddenly arrested by a curious sight.
At the further end of the long field, outlined against the hedge, and
thrown into strong relief by the light of a lantern which stood on the
ground beside her, was a girl, digging. He could see her distinctly, and
could even note that she wore a white apron, that her sleeves were tucked
up, and that she had no hat or covering of any kind on her head. She
laboured with a will, but presently flung aside her spade, and, kneeling
down, drew something from her bosom which she thrust into the hole she
had made. As she bent over it, Timothy watching breathlessly from his
post behind the hurdles saw and recognised her face. It was Ann-Car’line
Bartlett, who lived in one of the cottages down in the dip yonder.
Timothy had seen her several times, for she came regularly twice a day to
buy milk at Hounsell’s farm. She had even seemed to him a nice, modest,
quiet-spoken maid, and he wondered much at the nature of the task she was
now accomplishing. Soon she was on her feet again, shovelling back the
earth with feverish energy; then, taking up her lantern, she stepped
towards the hedge, and stood there for a moment or two; but her back was
turned towards Timothy, and, crane his neck as he might, he could not see
what she was doing. Presently she turned about again, caught up her
spade, and, squeezing herself through a gap in the hedge, walked away
down the lane.
Timothy rose cautiously to his feet and looked after the bobbing lantern
till it vanished from his sight, and then, feeling in his pocket for a
fresh bit of candle, put it into his lantern, lit it, and ran to inspect
the mysterious spot. First he examined the hedge, and after a minute
scrutiny discovered a small cross cut deep into the bark of a stout holly
sapling, which was evidently intended to serve as a landmark; next,
carefully inspecting the ground in the neighbourhood, he came to the
place where the earth had been recently disturbed. The field was a
turnip field, and it would have been difficult on the morrow to
distinguish the precise locality without some such precaution as the girl
had taken; as Timothy knelt down to pursue his investigations he mentally
commended her wisdom.
Depositing his lantern on the ground he scratched away the loose earth
with his vigorous hands, and presently came to a little bundle. This, on
being withdrawn and held to the light, proved to be a cheap printed
cotton handkerchief which was carefully knotted about something hard and
round. Timothy breathlessly removed this outer covering, and discovered
to his astonishment a gold watch. A gentleman’s gold watch, as he said
to himself, for it was a fairly large size, and there was a monogram on
the lid, and two or three seals and charms—fallals Timothy dubbed
them—appended to the ring.
Timothy sat back on his heels, opening eyes and mouth in astonishment.
“Well, I’m dalled!” he ejaculated under his breath. “That there nice,
vitty little maid. Who’d ever think she’d be that artful. And that
wicked!” he added severely.
After turning about the watch, and examining it on every side, he wrapped
it up again, and restored it to its hiding-place.
“She must ha’ stole it,” he said to himself, as he threw in the earth
again. “Certain sure, she must ha’ stole it. A poor maid like her
doesn’t ha’ gold watches to throw about. If it was given to her she
wouldn’t go and bury it in a field half a mile away from her home. No,
’tisn’t very likely. She stole it. That’s what she’s done, and she’ve
a-hid it away here to keep it safe till she can pop it, or maybe sell it.
Nobody ’ud ha’ knowed if I hadn’t chanced to look over the hurdle. It do
really seem quite providential,” continued Timothy, who loved to use a
long word, now and then, even in communion with himself, “to think I
should ha’ falled asleep, and my lantern should ha’ went out like that,
else the maid ’ud never ha’ dug so nigh to where I was sittin’.”
He rose to his feet now, stamping down the earth over the filled-in hole,
and then loosening the surface with the toe of his big boot; as he turned
away he laughed to himself.
“The maid little thinks as I do know her secret. I’ll watch—ah, sure,
I’ll watch. I’m not wishful for to get her into trouble, but I’ll watch.
When she comes to dig her treasure up again, I’ll ha’ summat for to say
to her.”
With this resolution he made his way back to his charges; but throughout
his oft broken slumbers that night he was haunted by the remembrance of
Ann-Car’line’s secret; when he was not in fancy holding the watch in his
hand or replacing it in its wrapper, he was sternly questioning the girl
and receiving numerous and widely differing explanations of the mystery.
When he went about his work at early dawn he frequently glanced in the
direction of the hiding place, and saw in imagination the little round
packet lying snug at the bottom of its hole. A chance passer-by on the
rough track on the other side of the hedge made him start—would he be
likely to detect that the earth had been recently disturbed in that
particular spot which Timothy knew of? Even when Mr Hounsell came up as
usual to inspect the little flock, Timothy was careful to place himself
immediately in front of him, whenever the farmer chanced to glance in the
direction in question; so that his own burly form might serve as a screen
to Ann-Car’line’s indiscretion.
“What be you a-turnin’ and a-turnin’ round me like that for?” enquired
his master presently, with some sternness. “There you do make I quite
giddy. You be jist same as a weathercock.”
Timothy had no answer ready on the moment; he looked up at the sky, and
then at the distant horizon, and finally remarked that he didn’t think
the wind was shiftin’ that much.
“I don’t say it be,” responded the farmer emphatically, “but I do say as
you mid be a weathercock the way you do go on a-twistin’ and
a-turnin’—there ye be again! What be the matter, man?”
Timothy set his hat more firmly on his head, cleared his throat, spat in
his hands, and caught up a pitchfork, remarking that there was a deal to
be seen to, and that weathercock or no weathercock, he ought to be
shakin’ out the straw.
“There’s one o’ the ewes here as I don’t so very well like the looks on,”
he said persuasively, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a
quarter which he felt to be perfectly safe.
Thereupon Mr Hounsell forgot to animadvert further on his underling’s
oddities, and immediately became immersed in more practical matters.
By chance the shepherd was obliged to betake himself to the farm that day
on some errand; and, as he was hurrying back to his charges, he
encountered Ann-Car’line, leisurely driving a flock of ducks towards a
wayside pond. She had slung her sun-bonnet on one arm, so that her
pretty hair caught such pale sunshine as was available on that November
afternoon; and in one hand she held a long elder switch with a few yellow
leaves dandling at its extremity. She responded to Timothy’s greeting
with perfect serenity, her placid blue eyes appearing more limpid even
than usual as she returned his gaze. When he was a few paces away from
her, picking his steps carefully among her waddling flock, he heard her
trill out a song as suddenly and sweetly as a robin might have done.
“Well, that beats all!” commented the shepherd. “There she do look I in
the face so innocent as a baby, and she do sing out like a—like a angel.
I can’t make nothing of it—nay, I can’t indeed.”
His hut had now been put into position, and he occupied it that night,
and might have slumbered peacefully enough, for his sheep were quiet; yet
he could not rest for thinking of Ann-Car’line and her secret.
“She mid ha’ found that watch,” he said to himself, “or she midn’t ha’
knowed ’twas wrong to take it. There, to think of it a-layin’ out there
so as anybody what liked mid just stretch out his hand and take it. What
’ud the poor maid do then? She’d ha’ no chance of giving it back, or
anything.”
Impelled by these reflections, Timothy presently got up and made a second
pilgrimage to Ann Car’line’s hiding-place. In a very few minutes he had
withrawn the watch from its wrapper, dropped it into his own pocket, and
replaced it by a round smooth stone. He chuckled to himself as he folded
the handkerchief about this and laid it in the hole.
“’Twill be a rare treat to see the maid’s face,” he said.
For greater safety he continued to carry the watch about his person,
carefully testing his pocket night and morning to make quite sure there
was no suspicion of a hole.
The knowledge of this possession made him look quizzically at
Ann-Car’line when next he came upon her; and strange to say he found
himself obliged to pass her house on the following day. She was busily
engaged in scrubbing the doorstep, and on hearing his footfall turned
round; and perceiving that he smiled, though somewhat oddly, smiled back,
gaily and innocently enough.
“Dear, to be sure!” exclaimed Timothy, pausing; “you do seem in very good
spirits, my maid.”
“Why, so I be,” replied the girl. “I han’t got nothing to make me sad,
have I?”
“I don’t suppose you have,” said Timothy. “You was a-singin’ yesterday
so gay as a lark.”
“Oh, I’m often singin’,” replied she. “I’d sing all day if I was let; it
do help to pass the time away.”
“You can’t sing and scrub, though, I shouldn’t think,” said Timothy,
tentatively.
“Can’t I?” retorted Ann-Car’line, and immediately dipped her brush in the
pail and simultaneously lifted that marvellous clear voice of hers. It
was a marvellous voice—fresh and true and ringing; she could send it up,
up, to the very limit of the gamut, as it seemed, yet never lose
sweetness or roundness.
“Can’t I sing and scrub?” she repeated, pausing to take breath and to
soap her brush afresh.
“I never heerd nothin’ like it!” replied Timothy, enthusiastically.
“Says I to myself yesterday, ‘It mid be a angel singin’,’ I says.”
“Oh, and did you?” said Ann-Car’line, growing pink with pleasure as she
vigorously polished the doorstep.
“Yes, I did indeed,” returned the shepherd earnestly. “I should think
you was a angel—or very near,” he added hastily, for at that moment he
chanced to thrust his hand into his pocket, and came in contact with
something hard and round.
“Very near—or, perhaps—I mid say—”
“I mid ha’ been summat very like a angel,” replied Ann-Car’line,
squatting back on her heels and looking at him seriously. “I mid ha’
been a fairy.”
Here she lowered her voice and looked round cautiously.
“What do you mean?” enquired Timothy, stooping over her and speaking in
the same tone.
“Hush! It’s a secret. Don’t let mother hear ye!”
The shepherd straightened himself again. “Ah, you’ve got secrets,” he
said dispassionately; “yes, young maids has secrets what they don’t like
the wold folks to hear on. But secrets is dangerous, my girl.”
And thereupon Timothy fingered the watch once more.
“There, what be so long a-doin’ for?” called out a sharp female voice
from within the cottage. “I could ha’ cleaned that doorstep forty times
while thou’rt thinkin’ on it.”
Ann-Car’line gathered up pail and brush, and hastened indoors, leaving
Timothy to meditate on her mysterious words as he made his way towards
the fold.
He frowned as he walked along, and struck at the hedge savagely with his
crook.
“Fairies is nonsense-folk!” he exclaimed aloud once and again; “I can’t
think as thikky maid can be so artful as she do seem.”
On the following Sunday, by some accident, he found himself next her in
church, and, perceiving that he had no hymn-book, Ann-Car’line was kind
enough to permit him to share hers. She looked as fair and innocent as a
flower, and sang with all her heart. Timothy was quite carried away.
Artful indeed! There wasn’t her match in the whole county of Dorset for
looks, and he’d go warrant she was as good as she seemed.
When they emerged from the church he asked her to walk with him, and
before half an hour had passed had begun to court her in form. He
actually forgot, for the time being, all about the watch and his
suspicions connected with it, and it was not until Ann-Car’line had
unexpectedly broken a somewhat long and contented silence by a fragment
of some gay little song—not a hymn-tune—that he remembered the phrase
which had so much puzzled him a few days before.
“What was that you was a-sayin’ about bein’ a fairy?” he enquired,
abruptly.
Ann-Car’line’s little white teeth flashed out in a mischievous smile. “I
was axed once if I’d like to be a fairy,” said she. “Don’t ye think I’d
make a very good one?”
“There’s no such folks as fairies,” returned Timothy. “Nobody couldn’t
ha’ axed ye such a thing.”
“They did though!” retorted Ann-Car’line. “Says they, ‘You be a pretty
maid—you’d make a very good fairy. Would you like to be one?’”
“Now that’s a nonsense tale,” said the shepherd firmly. “I’ll not put up
wi’ no such stories. If you and me be to walk out, and to—and to—carry
on reg’lar same as we’ve a-made up our minds to do, you did ought to have
more respect for I. So don’t ye be a-comin’ to I again wi’ such made-up
tales.”
The girl laughed again in a queer, little secret way that annoyed him
still more.
“There must be truth between us,” he said, almost harshly. “You must
tell me the truth about everything.”
He broke off, looking at her oddly; he did not intend to let her know how
much he had found out for himself. She must confess everything to him of
her own accord, and then he would stand by her through thick and thin.
Ann-Car’line, however, did not seem in the least impressed; she went on
singing to herself under her breath, glancing maliciously at Timothy from
time to time.
“I can’t help it if you don’t believe me,” said she, “and there’s nothin’
more as I can tell ye.”
“Nothin’ at all?” enquired the shepherd sternly. He thought he saw her
change colour, but she shook her head emphatically.
“That’ll do,” said Timothy fiercely. “We’ve made a mistake, my girl, and
’tis best to say so straight out. If ye can look I in the face and tell
I they things, ye b’ain’t the maid for I. Ye can find somebody else to
keep company wi’. I’d sooner live lonesome all my days nor have a wife
as wasn’t to be trusted; so I’ll bid ye good-day. But there’s one
thing,” he added, turning round suddenly, “ye may find yourself in
trouble sooner than ye think for, and ye may be glad enough to own up
then. I’ll not be your sweetheart no more, but if ever you’re in trouble
and will own up I’ll stand by ye.”
She looked at him for a moment oddly, half-fearfully, but recovering
herself, turned upon her heel, muttering something about a likely tale,
coupled with certain ejaculations intended to prove her entire content
with the actual condition of affairs, and her scorn of the recalcitrant
lover.
Timothy went home in high dudgeon, and taking out the watch gave it a
little indignant shake.
“I’ve a good mind to put thee back where I found thee,” said he. “Yes,
it ’ud serve her right if I put thee back and took no more notice of
either of ye.”
But after a moment’s fierce reflection he put the watch back in his
pocket again, and decided to wait.
Days passed and became weeks; Timothy frequently met Ann-Car’line,
greeting her with a surly word or two, to which she responded by a saucy
nod; sometimes he would hear her singing in the lanes, and would pause to
listen when he thought himself unnoticed; and on Sundays, though they no
longer shared the same hymn-book, his eyes frequently wandered to her
face, and he was forced to confess to himself that though he knew her to
be an artful, untruthful little maid, she looked, as he had so often
said, “like a angel.”
At last the long-expected actually came to pass. He woke up suddenly,
very early, one morning, and saw a lantern glimmering at the further end
of the field. He immediately rose, put on his coat, and opening the door
of the hut a little wider peered out into the darkness. It was not yet
five o’clock, and here in the open field all was still as at midnight.
The weather had “taken up” lately; the keen crispness of frost was in the
air, and the sky was full of stars. The bobbing light yonder seemed to
blink like one at first, but presently became steady, and all at once he
heard, or fancied he heard, a faint cry.
“She’s found the stone,” said Timothy, and grinned to himself.
Now the light began to waver again, and, as Timothy expected, approached
the hut. As it drew near, Ann-Car’line’s voice was heard calling
piteously, “Mr Kiddle! Timothy—Timothy!”
The shepherd winked to himself, and answered with a low and muffled roar,
intended to indicate that he had just been aroused from profound slumber.
“Oh, Timothy Kiddle!” cried the voice, “please come out a minute, I don’t
know what to do. Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Hold hard a minute!” cried Timothy. “I’m coming!”
He lighted his lantern and sallied forth. There stood Ann-Car’line,
pressing close against the hurdle fence, the light which she held up
falling upon her white scared face, and upon the handkerchief in her
hand.
“What be doin’ here, my maid, at this hour?” enquired the shepherd
sternly. “You did ought to be at home and a-bed. ’Tisn’t respectable to
be wanderin’ about in the fields in the dark.”
“Oh, don’t be so cross,” pleaded the girl. “I wouldn’t come if I could
help it. Oh dear! Oh dear! I’m in such trouble. You said I was to
call you if I was in trouble.”
“I said you was to own up,” said Timothy, grimly. “You must start wi’
that.”
“I thought you’d be a bit kinder,” moaned Ann-Car’line, and two big tears
rolled down her cheeks. “I—I—I had summat as I didn’t want the folks at
home to see—I haven’t got nothin’ what locks—so I made a little hole at
the bottom of the field yon—and I buried it. An’—an’—somebody’s been an’
stole it away, an’ put a stone in its place.”
“That’s a queer tale,” said Timothy. “Very near as queer a tale as the
one you did tell I about bein’ axed to be a fairy.”
“Oh, but it’s true—it’s really true,” cried Ann-Car’line earnestly. “And
the worst of it is the thing—what I hid—wasn’t mine.”
Timothy deliberately set down his lantern, and folded his arms on the top
of the hurdle.
“You’ll have to come out wi’ the whole truth, my girl,” said he; “what
was the thing ye hid?”
“’Twas a watch,” gasped the girl; “a gold watch.”
Timothy whistled under his breath. “And ’twasn’t yours, ye say?” he
remarked after a pause. “Ye stole it then, did ye? Ye’ll be put in
prison so sure as I be a-lookin’ at ye.”
“Stole it!” ejaculated Ann-Car’line with a little scream. “I did no such
thing. ’Twas give me, but I didn’t want to take it an’ I said I’d give
it back—and now I can’t,” she added with a burst of woe.
“Now look ye here, maidie,” cried Timothy, in a voice that had suddenly
grown extremely wrathful, “this ’ere tale’s worse nor what I looked for.
Who gave ye that watch? Come, make a clean breast on’t—else I’ll not
lift a finger to help ye. It’ll have to come out first or last, and
there’s less shame in telling me—what’s your friend—”
“I’m not ashamed,” interrupted Ann-Car’line, throwing back her head. “I
have not done wrong. ’Twas a gentleman give me the watch, there!”
“Well, then you have done wrong!” said the shepherd, sternly. “What
right had ye to take gold watches from gentlemen as ye dursen’t let your
mother see. It bain’t a very nice story, that. Who is the gentleman?”
he added fiercely. “What did he give ye the watch for?”
Standing up to the hurdle he seized the girl by the wrists, pinioning her
fast.
“Lard, Timothy! Don’t pinch me so vicious—you be hurtin’ I. There,
’twas a actin’ gentleman what come wi’ a lot o’ others to the town in the
summer. They was actin’ a play at the Corn Exchange, wi’ a lot o’
singin’ and dancin’ in it. This one was the head o’ the actin’ folks. I
went there along o’ father, and he said he see’d me all the time the play
was goin’ on—”
“Your father said that?” queried Timothy, sharply.
“No, the actin’ gentleman. He come upon me the next day, walkin’ along
the lane and singin’—as I mid be the first day you did talk to I—and he
did stop and speak.”
“What did he say?” growled Timothy, tightening his grip upon her wrists.
“Oh, he axed I a lot of questions, and he did say I wer’ a very pretty
girl, and he did ax I would I like to be a fairy?”
“It was him said that,” interrupted the shepherd. “I never thought there
was a word o’ truth in the tale.”
“There was, though. He meant a play-actin’ fairy, o’ course. He said
all I’d have to do was to sing a bit, and dance a bit, and look nice, and
I’d get a lot of money and see the world too.”
“So he said, and what did you say?” asked Timothy, as she paused.
“First I said I didn’t think mother could spare me, and then I said I
didn’t think I’d like it, and then I said straight out I wouldn’t. But
he wouldn’t take No,” said Ann-Car’line, opening her eyes very wide.
“The more I hung back, the more he pressed—and at last he pulls out that
watch an’ says he, ‘Now, my dear, think it over. We’ll be comin’ back
again about Christmas-time,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you from now to then to
make up your mind. And meanwhile there’s my watch for you to keep,’ says
he—‘’twill show you I’m in earnest, anyhow. You can mark the flight of
time with that,’ says he—he spoke so funny, ye know—‘and with every day
that passes you must be the nearer to making up your mind to sayin’ Yes.’
Wasn’t it a queer notion?”
“A very queer notion, indeed,” said Timothy, grimly. “Well, and now
ye’ve lost the watch—and what be ye goin’ to do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure,” returned Ann-Car’line, sobbing afresh. “I
shall never be able to look him in the face, when he comes for his
answer.”
“So much the better,” said Timothy, rigidly. “He’ll not be in such a
hurry to meddle wi’ young maids again, p’raps.”
“Oh, but he’ll be sure to think I sold it, or pawned it, or summat—he’ll
maybe have the law on me.”
“Is that all what’s troublin’ ye?” said the shepherd, fixing her with a
piercing gaze. “If anybody was to find that watch for ye, you wouldn’t
want to go turnin’ into a fairy or any sich tomfoolery?”
“I shouldn’t—indeed I shouldn’t,” she cried earnestly. “Oh, Timothy,
will ye help me to find it?”
“I don’t know but what I will,” said he—“if you’ll promise me—promise me
faithful—faithful, mind, not to take no more notice at all of that
play-actin’ gentleman. I’ll find that watch if ye’ll let me take it back
to the man myself, and tell en so.”
“I will—I’ll promise,” sobbed she.
“It’s a bargain!” said Timothy, firmly. “Now then—let’s see what can be
done. Was there nobody at all in the field when you did chance to bury
that watch? Somebody must ha’ see’d ye do it, ye see, and then so soon
as your back was turned, gone and dug it up again.”
“Oh, there was nobody there,” replied the girl, emphatically. “I watched
and waited for ever so long before I made the hole—there wasn’t a sign of
anybody. Your hut wasn’t up here then—I shouldn’t ha’ done it if it had
a-been there, for I’d ha’ been afeard ye mid see me.”
“Yes,” agreed Timothy, “that’s true. I mid ha’ seen ye.”
“And nobody could tell where ’twas hid,” she pursued mournfully. “I
scratched up the earth and made it look same as all the rest o’ the
field. I shouldn’t ha’ found it myself if I hadn’t ha’ made a little
sign to know it by.”
“Sich as a mark in the hedge?” suggested Timothy.
She stared at him.
“A little cross, as mid be, cut in a holly stem?” continued the shepherd.
“O-o-oh,” cried Ann-Car’line, “you horrid, unkind, teasin’ chap! I d’
’low you was spyin’ on me all the time!”
For all answer Timothy dived to the depths of his pocket and produced by
slow degrees, first the chain, and then the watch itself.
Ann-Car’line, uncertain whether to be more angry or relieved, burst into
a series of disjointed exclamations, and finally ordered her lover to
give her back that watch immediately.
“Nothin’ of the kind,” replied he, dropping it into his pocket again.
“I’ll keep it for ye same as I’ve a-been doin’ all along. Says I to
mysel’ when I see’d what you was arter—‘That there maid’ll be gettin’
into trouble,’ I says, ‘wi’out somebody interferes.’ And so I—”
“Oh, Timothy, did ye?” cried Ann-Car’line, melting all at once, “but ye
needn’t ha’ gied me such a fright.”
“Ye shouldn’t ha’ had secrets from I, then,” returned he. “Well, we’ll
ha’ no more secrets now, my girl, shall us? I’ll gi’e that watch back to
the chap and send en about his business.”
“But he’ll think it so queer, won’t he?” said she, simpering.
“He’ll not think it a bit queer when I do tell en I be a-courtin’ of ye.”
“Oh, Timothy!” sighed Ann-Car’line.
And then Timothy Kiddle set his lantern on the ground, and, leaning over
the hurdles, kissed her with great earnestness and satisfaction.
“Nothing like having a thing settled!” said he.