breath, "how you did exaggerate my poor narves, a-rushing up so soft,
with the cold steel in both your hands!"

"Ah! ma'am, it have right to be a good deal wuss than that," the
chivalrous Swipes made answer, with the scythe beside his ear. "It don't
consarn what the masters say, though enough to take one's legs off. But
the ladies, Mrs. Cloam, the ladies--it's them as takes our heads off."

"Go 'long with you, Mr. Swipes! You are so disastrous at turning things.
And how much did he say you was to have this time? Here's Jenny Shanks
coming up the passage."

"Well, he left it to myself; he have that confidence in me. And little
it is I should ever care to take, with the power of my own will, ma'am.
Why, the little brown jug, ma'am, is as much as I can manage even of our
small beer now. Ah! I know the time when I would no more have thought
of rounding of my mouth for such small stuff than of your growing up,
ma'am, to be a young woman with the sponsorship of this big place upon
you. Wonderful! wonderful! And only yesterday, as a man with a gardening
mind looks at it, you was the prettiest young maiden on the green, and
the same--barring marriage--if you was to encounter with the young men
now."

"Oh," said Mrs. Cloam, who was fifty, if a day, "how you do make me
think of sad troubles, Mr. Swipes! Jenny, take the yellow jug with the
three beef-eaters on it, and go to the third cask from the door--the key
turns upside down, mind--and let me hear you whistle till you bring me
back the key. Don't tell me nonsense about your lips being dry. You can
whistle like a blackbird when you choose."