“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Jane; and, dropping a courtesy, walked on with her basket. I went to her parents’ cottage. As I came near the mill, the young miller was standing in the door with his eyes fixed on the ground, while the mill went on hopping behind him. But when he caught sight of me, he turned, and went in, as if he had not seen me. “Has he been behaving ill to Jane?” thought I. As he evidently wished to avoid me, I passed the mill without looking in at the door, as I was in the habit of doing, and went on to the cottage, where I lifted the latch, and walked in. Both the old people were there, and both looked troubled, though they welcomed me none the less kindly. “I met Jane,” I said, “and she looked unhappy; so I came on to hear what was the matter.” “You oughtn’t to be troubled with our small affairs,” said Mrs. Rogers. “If the parson wants to know, why, the parson must be told,” said Old Rogers, smiling cheerily, as if he, at least, would be relieved by telling me. “I don’t want to know,” I said, “if you don’t want to tell me. But can I be of any use?” “I don’t think you can, sir,—leastways, I’m afraid not,” said the old woman. “I am sorry to say, sir, that Master Brownrigg and his son has come to words about our Jane; and it’s not agreeable to have folk’s daughter quarrelled over in that way,” said Old Rogers. “What’ll be the upshot on it, I don’t know, but it looks bad now. For the father he tells the son that if ever he hear of him saying one word to our Jane, out of the mill he goes, as sure as his name’s Dick. Now, it’s rather a good chance, I think, to see what the young fellow’s made of, sir. So I tells my old ’oman here; and so I told Jane. But neither on ’em seems to see the comfort of it somehow. But the New Testament do say a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” “But she ain’t his wife yet,” said Mrs Rogers to her husband, whose drift was not yet evident. “No more she can be, ’cept he leaves his father for her.” “And what’ll become of them then, without the mill?” “You and me never had no mill, old ’oman,” said Rogers; “yet here we be, very nearly ripe now,—ain’t us, wife?” “Medlar-like, Old Rogers, I doubt,—rotten before we’re ripe,” replied his wife, quoting a more humorous than refined proverb. “Nay, nay, old ’oman. Don’t ’e say so. The Lord won’t let us rot before we’re ripe, anyhow. That I be sure on.” “But, anyhow, it’s all very well to talk. Thou knows how to talk, Rogers. But how will it be when the children comes, and no mill?” “To grind ’em in, old ’oman?” Mrs Rogers turned to me, who was listening with real interest, and much amusement. “I wish you would speak a word to Old Rogers, sir. He never will speak as he’s spoken to. He’s always over merry, or over serious. He either takes me up short with a sermon, or he laughs me out of countenance that I don’t know where to look.”