"Yes," said Babbett; "the gamekeepers are no good Christians anyhow:
they can do nothing but get poor folks into the workhouse for
trespassing, and kill poor innocent beasts and birds. That green
devil's imp there sent poor Blase's Kitty to prison for four weeks just
the other day. I wouldn't marry a gamekeeper if he were to promise me I
don't know what."
"Old Ursula once told me," said Bridget, the youngest of the three,
"that a gamekeeper is bound to kill a living thing every day of his
life."
"That he can do easy enough," laughed Babbett, catching a gnat which
had settled on her arm.
By this time the gamekeeper came quite near them. As if by a previous
arrangement, they all began to sing again: they wished to pretend that
they did not see the gamekeeper, but in their constraint they could not
raise their voices, and only hummed the last verse of the song:--
"If she plays me false I will play her fair:
Three feathers upon my hat I wear;
And, as she will not have me stay,
I'll travel forth upon my way."
"Girls, how are you?" said the gamekeeper, standing still: "why don't
you sing louder?"
The girls began to giggle, and held their aprons to their mouths.
Babbett found her tongue first, and said, "Thank you, mister, we are
only singing for ourselves, and so we hear it if we sing ever so low:
we don't sing for other people."
"Whisht!" said the gamekeeper: "the little tongue cuts like a sickle."
"Sickle or straight, it's as broad as it's long; whoever don't like it
may talk to suit himself if he can," replied Babbett. Tony jogged her,
saying, half aloud, "You're as rough as a hedgehog, you Babbett."
"Oh, I can stand a joke as well as the next one," said the gamekeeper,
making the best of a bad job.
For all that, the girls were a good deal embarrassed, and did just the
worst thing to put an end to it: they rose and took each others' arms
to go home.
"May I go with you, ladies?" said the gamekeeper again.
"It's a high road and a wide road," said Babbett.
The gamekeeper thought of getting away, but reflected that it would
look ridiculous to let these girls bluff him off. He felt that he ought
to pay Babbett in her own coin, but he could not: Tony, by whose side
he walked, had "smitten" him so hard that he forgot all the jokes he
ever knew, although he was not a bashful man by any means. So he left
the saucy girl in the enjoyment of her fun and walked on in silence.
Just to mend matters a little, Tony asked, "Where are you going on
Sunday?"
"To Horb," said the gamekeeper; "and if the ladies would go with me I
wouldn't mind standing treat for a pint or two of the best."
"We're going home," said Tony, blushing up to the eyes.
"We'd rather drink Adam's ale," said Babbett: "we get that for nothing
too."
At the first house of the village, Babbett again said, pointing to a
footpath, "Mr. Gamekeeper, there's a short cut for you goes round
behind the village: that's the nearest way to Horb."
The gamekeeper's patience was running out, and he had a wicked jibe on
his lips; but, checking, himself, he only said, "I like to look an
honest village and honest people in the face." He could not refrain
from turning his back on Babbett as he spoke.
The gamekeeper grew uncivil because he could not crack a joke,--a thing
that happens frequently.
As they were entering the village, the gamekeeper asked Tony what her
name was. Before she could answer, Babbett interposed, "Like her
father's."
And when the gamekeeper retorted upon Babbett, "Why, you are mighty
sharp to-day: how old are you?" he received the common answer, "As old
as my little finger."