s door-stones. 'Twadn't the
new County Council bridge with the handrail. They hadn't given it in for
a public right o' way then. 'Twas just a bit o' lathy old plank which
Jim had throwed acrost the brook for his own conveniences. The man
wasn't drunk--only a little concerned in liquor, like--an' his back was
a mask where he'd slipped in the muck comin' along. He went up the
bricks past Jim's mother, which was feedin' the ducks, an' set himself
down at the table inside--Jim was just changin' his socks--an' the man
let Jim know all his rights and aims regardin' Mary. Then there just
about _was_ a hurly-bulloo? Jim's fust mind was to pitch him forth, but
he'd done that once in his young days, and got six months up to Lewes
jail along o' the man fallin' on his head. So he swallowed his spittle
an' let him talk. The law about Mary _was_ on the man's side from fust
to last, for he showed us all the papers. Then Mary come
downstairs--she'd been studyin' for an examination--an' the man tells
her who he was, an' she says he had ought to have took proper care of
his own flesh and blood while he had it by him, an' not to think he
could ree-claim it when it suited. He says somethin' or other, but she
looks him up an' down, front an' backwent, an' she just tongues him
scadderin' out o' doors, and he went away stuffin' all the papers back
into his hat, talkin' most abusefully. Then she come back an' freed her
mind against Jim an' his mother for not havin' warned her of her
upbringin's, which it come out she hadn't ever been told. They didn't
say naun to her. They never did. _I'd_ ha' packed her off with any man
that would ha' took her--an' God's pity on him!'

'Umm!' said Jabez, and sucked his pipe.

'So then, that was the beginnin.' The man come back again next week or
so, an' he catched Jim alone, 'thout his mother this time, an' he fair
beazled him with his papers an' his talk--for the law _was_ on his
side--till Jim went down into his money-purse an' give him ten shillings
hush-money--he told me--to withdraw away for a bit an' leave Mary
with 'em.'

'But that's no way to get rid o' man or woman,' Jabez said.

'No more 'tis. I told Jim so. "What can I do?" Jim says. "The law's
_with_ the man. I walk about daytimes thinkin' o' it till I sweats my
underclothes wringin', an' I lie abed nights thinkin' o' it till I
sweats my sheets all of a sop. 'Tisn't as if I was a young man," he
says, "nor yet as if I was a pore man. Maybe he'l