“From Molesey? I know a good many of the people there. The only man who died there this summer, to my knowledge, was an old bachelor by the name of Powell. What was this young woman’s name? “Watson, or Wilson, I won’t be certain which. Never mind; I dare say she’s all right by now. The more they takes on at first, the sooner they gets shut.” “But you took her on our side of the river, as you said. Did you go to fetch her? What day was it? What was she like? Who sent you for her? Where did you land her? How came you—” “Look here, Mr. What’s your name. You hires my boat, and you hires me to row; but not to go on about other people’s business.” “But it may be my own business, Philip Moggs. And you may get into desperate trouble, by refusing to tell me all you know of it.” “Not a bit feared of that,” the old man answered; “I’ve a-knowed hundreds get into trouble with too much clacking, but never one the other way.” He shut up his mouth, and looked like an old villain of a horse I had seen at Sam Henderson’s, who had pits above his eyes, and ears that stuck back like a gun-cock, and a nose that was as wiry as a twisted toasting-folk. This was a man who would whistle on his own nails to warm them, but not to warn another man from going down a weir-pool. “Well,” I said, “never mind; I don’t suppose it matters”—for I was able to master my manners now, after three months of endurance; “only somebody has a bit of money upon something; and you might cut in for it, if you gave a hand. But I’ll be bound you know nothing about it, after all. You fellows, who are always on the water, dream all sorts of stuff, just as I did this afternoon.” “Then, Mister, I’ll just keep my dreaming to myself. I did hear of something queer down your way. But least said, soonest mended. Time to be shoving off again.” On the homeward row, I did my best to drive out of my mind all thought of this ancient mariner, and his story. And he feigned not to be thinking of it; though I caught his wrinkled eyelids dropping suddenly at the sudden glances which I cast upon him. He was watching me narrowly, when I looked away; and I thought it likely that he would land again when he had discharged us, and try to learn all about me in the village. For we at Sunbury knew but little of the Shepperton people at that time, looking on it rather as a goose-green sort of place, benighted, and rustic, and adverse to good manners. Shepperton, without equal ground, despised us, as a set of half-Cockneys, and truckling for the money of London, which they very nobly contemned, because they got so little of it. If anything exciting came to pass at Sunbury, these odd people shrugged their shoulders, and talked about Bow Street, and Newgate, and the like; as if they belonged to Middlesex, and we to London. However, there can be no doubt which is the finer village.