as to ask him (even
in our own house!) what he meant by not mending the swing-hurdle where
the Lynn stream flows from our land into his, and which he is bound to
maintain. But he looked at me in a superior manner, and said, 'Business,
young man, in business time.'

I had other reason for being vexed with Farmer Nicholas just now, viz.
that I had heard a rumour, after church one Sunday--when most of all we
sorrow over the sins of one another--that Master Nicholas Snowe had
been seen to gaze tenderly at my mother, during a passage of the sermon,
wherein the parson spoke well and warmly about the duty of Christian
love. Now, putting one thing with another, about the bees, and about
some ducks, and a bullock with a broken knee-cap, I more than suspected
that Farmer Nicholas was casting sheep's eyes at my mother; not only to
save all further trouble in the matter of the hurdle, but to override me
altogether upon the difficult question of damming. And I knew quite well
that John Fry's wife never came to help at the washing without declaring
that it was a sin for a well-looking woman like mother, with plenty
to live on, and only three children, to keep all the farmers for miles
around so unsettled in their minds about her. Mother used to answer 'Oh
fie, Mistress Fry! be good enough to mind your own business.' But we
always saw that she smoothed her apron, and did her hair up afterwards,
and that Mistress Fry went home at night with a cold pig's foot or a
bowl of dripping.

Therefore, on that very night, as I could not well speak to mother
about it, without seeming undutiful, after lighting the three young
ladies--for so in sooth they called themselves--all the way home with
our stable-lanthorn, I begged good leave of Farmer Nicholas (who had
hung some way behind us) to say a word in private to him, before he
entered his own house.

'Wi' all the plaisure in laife, my zon,' he answered very graciously,
thinking perhaps that I was prepared to speak concerning Sally.

'Now, Farmer Nicholas Snowe,' I said, scarce knowing how to begin it,
'you must promise not to be vexed with me, for what I am going to say to
you.'

'Vaxed wi' thee! Noo, noo, my lad. I 'ave a knowed thee too long for
that. And thy veyther were my best friend, afore thee. Never wronged his
neighbours, never spak an unkind word, never had no maneness in him.
Tuk a vancy to a nice young 'ooman, and never kep her in doubt about it,
though there wadn't mooch to z