“Well, then, I was a year-abouts in Lunnon, all at a breath, like, four meals a day an’ livin’ easy. Then, ’long towards autumn, they two went travellin’, like, to France; keepin’ me on, for they couldn’t do without me. I put the house to rights for the caretaker, an’ then I slipped down ’ere to me sister Bessie--me wages in me pockets, an’ all ’ands glad to be’old of me.” “That would be when I was at Cosham,” said Mrs. Fettley. “_You_ know, Liz, there wasn’t no cheap-dog pride to folk, those days, no more than there was cinemas nor whisk-drives. Man or woman ’ud lay hold o’ any job that promised a shillin’ to the backside of it, didn’t they? I was all peaked up after Lunnon, an’ I thought the fresh airs ’ud serve me. So I took on at Smalldene, obligin’ with a hand at the early potato-liftin’, stubbin’ hens, an’ such-like. They’d ha’ mocked me sore in my kitchen in Lunnon, to see me in men’s boots, an’ me petticoats all shorted.” “Did it bring ye any good?” Mrs. Fettley asked. “’Twadn’t for that I went. You know, ’s’well’s me, that na’un happens to ye till it _’as_ ’appened. Your mind don’t warn ye before’and of the road ye’ve took, till you’re at the far eend of it. We’ve only a backwent view of our proceedin’s.” “’Oo was it?” “’Arry Mockler.” Mrs. Ashcroft’s face puckered to the pain of her sick leg. Mrs. Fettley gasped. “’Arry? Bert Mockler’s son! An’ _I_ never guessed!” Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “An’ I told myself--_an’_ I beleft it--that I wanted field-work.” “What did ye get out of it?” “The usuals. Everythin’ at first--worse than naught after. I had signs an’ warnings a-plenty, but I took no heed of ’em. For we was burnin’ rubbish one day, just when we’d come to know how ’twas with--with both of us. ’Twas early in the year for burnin’, an’ I said so. ‘No!’ says he. ‘The sooner dat old stuff’s off an’ done with,’ ’e says, ‘the better.’ ’Is face was harder’n rocks when he spoke. Then it come over me that I’d found me master, which I ’adn’t ever before. I’d allus owned ’em, like.” “Yes! Yes! They’re yourn or you’re theirn,” the other sighed. “I like the right way best.” “I didn’t. But ’Arry did.... ’Long then, it come time for me to go back to Lunnon. I couldn’t. I clean couldn’t! So, I took an’ tipped a dollop o’ scaldin’ water out o’ the copper one Monday mornin’ over me left ’and and arm. Dat stayed me where I was for another fortnight.” “Was it worth it?” said Mrs. Fettley, looking at the silvery scar on the wrinkled fore-arm. Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “An’ after that, we two made it up ’twixt us so’s ’e could come to Lunnon for a job in a liv’ry-stable not far from me. ’E got it. _I_ ’tended to that. There wadn’t no talk nowhere. His own mother never suspicioned how ’twas. He just slipped up to Lunnon, an’ there we abode that winter, not ’alf a mile t’other from each.” “Ye paid ’is fare an’ all, though”; Mrs. Fettley spoke convincedly.