We folk down here heard
o' nothing else for all that year. She got hold o' Squire, this ere
woman did, though he was but a school-boy, and she old enough to be his
mother, bless ye, and was married to him. And they kep' it secret for
six months; and that's what bangs me most about it all. For Carew, he
can keep nothing secret--nothing: he blurts all out; and that's why he
seems so much worse than he is to some people. Oh, she must have been a
deep one, she must!"
"You never saw her, then?" asked Yorke, carelessly shading his eyes, as
though from the westering sun, which Midas-like, was turning every thing
it touched in that broad landscape into gold.
"Oh yes, I see her; she was here with Squire near half a year. Mrs.
Carew--the old lady, I mean--was at Crompton then; and the young
one--though she was no chicken neither--she tried to get her turned out;
but she wasn't clever enough, clever as she was, for that job. Carew
loved his mother, as indeed he ought, for she had never denied him any
thing since he was born; and so, in that pitched battle between the
women, he took his mother's side. And in the end the old lady took his,
and with a vengeance. I do think that if it had not been for her, young
madam would have held on--Why, what's the matter, young gentleman? That
was an oath fit for the mouth of Squire hisself.
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