father owned Sheba Farm, an' she look'd across on my man, an' had envy
on 'en, an' set her eyes to draw 'en. Oh, a saint she was! An' he, the
poor shammick, went. 'Twas a good girl, you understand, that wished
for to marry an' reform 'en. She had money, too. _I_? I'd ha' poured
out my blood for 'en: that's all I cud do. So he went.

"As the place shines this day, it shone then. Like a moth it drew 'en.
Late o' summer evenin's its windeys shone when down below here 'twas
chill i' the hill's shadow. An' late at night the candles burned up
there as he courted her. Purity and cosiness, you understand, an' down
here--he forgot about down here. Before he'd missed to speak to me for
a month, I'd hear 'en whistlin' up the hill, so merry as a grig. Well,
he married her.

"They was married three months, an' 'twas harvest time come round, an'
I in his vield a-gleanin'. For I was suffered near to that extent,
seem' that the cottage here had been my fathers', an' was mine, an'
out o't they culdn' turn me. One o' the hands, as they was pitchin',
passes me an empty keg, an' says, 'Run you to the farm-place an' get
it filled.' So with it I went to th' kitchen, and while I waited
outside I sees his coat an' wesket 'pon a peg i' the passage. Well I
knew the coat; an' a madness takin' me for all my loss, I unhitched it
an' flung it behind the door, an', the keg bein' filled, picked it up
agen and ran down home-along.

"No thought had I but to win Seth back. 'Twas the charm you spoke
about: an' that same midnight I delved a hole by the dreshold an'
buried the coat, whisperin', '_Man, come back, come back to me_!' as
Aun' Lesnewth had a-taught me, times afore.