They
were no credit to Marsham, anyway.
Meanwhile Diana walked home, lingering by the way in two or three
cottages. She was shyly beginning to make friends with the people. An
old road-mender kept her listening while he told her how a Tallyn keeper
had peppered him in the eye, ten years before, as he was crossing Barrow
Common at dusk. One eye had been taken out, and the other was almost
useless; there he sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale--"Muster
Marsham--Muster Henry Marsham--had been verra kind--ten shillin' a week,
and an odd job now and then. I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times--but
ther's noa good in grumblin'--is there?"
Next door, in a straggling line of cottages, she found a gentle,
chattering widow whose husband had been drowned in the brew-house at
Beechcote twenty years before, drowned in the big vat!--before any one
had heard a cry or a sound. The widow was proud of so exceptional a
tragedy; eager to tell the tale. How had she lived since? Oh, a bit here
and a bit there. And, of late, half a crown from the parish.
Last of all, in a cottage midway between the village and Beechcote, she
paused to see a jolly middle-aged woman, with a humorous eye and a
stream of conversation--held prisoner by an incurable disease.
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