"I wonder you’re not afraid, Sarah Thornthet, to be setting there reeling off lies like hanks o’ cotton off a bobbin! Happen you’re just thinking you’ll get a rise out o’ me and mine, but if that’s the best you can do by way of a joke, well, I think nowt on’t, and so I tell you! Geordie coming home wi’ brass! Geordie wanting the Hall and suchlike! Nay, Sarah, I might ha’ believed the rest wi’ a bit o’ pulling and pushing, but yon last’s taking it over far. Why, I’d as lief believe he was going to get the King’s Crown right out, wi’ mappen Witham Town Hall for a spot to live in! As for thinking o’ me and my feelings and suchlike stuff, you’ve never troubled that much about ’em to start bothering now. There’s only two ways about it, Sarah, and I reckon I know which it is. It’s either a smart lie you’ve been telling from end to end, or else it’s never Geordie that’s coming, but our Jim!" She choked when she came to the last words, both from sudden nervousness, and lack of breath, and again Sarah gave her well-bred laugh. "I wouldn’t be as hard o’ faith as you, Eliza," she said placidly,--"not for a deal! It’s you, not me, would have heard if Jim was coming home. What’s Jim to do wi’ me?" "He’d a deal to do wi’ you when he was in England, as everybody knows! Nay, you hated the sight o’ him,--that’s true enough,--but you were right keen on trying to set him agen me, all the same. What, the last letter I had from him,--and terble saucy an’ all,--was blacking me over summat I’d said of you as his lordship didn’t like! Nay, if he come home, Sarah, he’d come to you, not me, and right glad you’d be to have him while he’d a penny before his teeth! Ay, and why shouldn’t our lad ha’ done as well as yours, and happen better, come to that? He was the smarter lad o’ the two, and come o’ smarter folk,--ay, but he did now, Sarah, so you’ll kindly shut your mouth! You’ve only to look at the way we’ve done at Blindbeck, me and Will, and then at the mess o’ things you’ve made at yon pig-hull on the marsh! It stands to reason our lad would be the likely one to make out, just as it isn’t in reason to expect owt from yours!" She came a step nearer as she finished, twisting her plump hands, her voice, as it mounted higher, full of bewilderment and angry tears. "Will you swear to it Jim isn’t coming, Sarah?" she demanded,--"will you swear? Will you swear as it isn’t my lad that’s coming and not yours?" Sarah said, "Ay, I will that!" in a hearty tone, and with such absolute readiness that Eliza bit her lip. "If you’ve a Bible anywhere handy," she went on tranquilly, "I’ll swear to it right off." But already Eliza had drawn back in order to follow a fresh trail. Quite suddenly she had perceived the only means of getting at the truth.