h of sorrow, a catch of resentment. "What more--when
your son is away?"

"Whose fault is that? Home weren't good enough for he. Even the
Old Ship on the sign-board didn't give him satisfaction, and he
must alter it. I don't see why I should worrit myself about the
hay or any other thing. I'll just put up my feet an enjye myself."

"Simon, I pray you answer Iver's letter. Opportunities be like
fleas, to be took sharp, or away they goes, they be terrible
long-legged. Opportunities only come now and then, and if not
caught are lost past recall. 'Twas so wi' Temperance Noakes, who
might a' had the chimbley-sweep if she'd a kissed him when he
axed. But she said, Wipe and wash your face fust--and she's an
old maid now, and goin' sixty. Consider, Simon. Iver be your son,
your only child. It's Providence makes us wot we is; that's why
you're a man and not a woman. Iver hadn't a gift to be a farmer,
but he had to paintin'. It can't be other--it's Providence orders
all, or you might be a mother and nursin' a baby, and I smokin'
and goin' after the plough in leggin's."

"That's all gammon," growled the landlord.

"We be gettin' old," pursued Mrs. Verstage. "In the end you'll
have to give up work, and who but Iver is to come after you here?"

"Him--Iver!" exclaimed Simon. "Your own self says 'e ain't fit to
be a farmer."

"Then he may let the farm and stick to the inn."

"He ain't got the makin' of a publican in him," retorted the man;
"he's just about fit for nothin' at all."

"Indeed, but he is, Simon," pleaded the woman, "only not in the
way you fancies. What good be you now in a public-house? You do
nothing there, it is I who have all the managin'."

"I attend to the farm. Iver can do neither. All the money you and
I ha' scraped together he'll chuck away wi' both hands. He'll let
the fences down I ha' set up; he'll let weeds overrun the fields
I ha' cleared. It shall not be. It never shall be."

"He may marry a thrifty wife, as you have done."

"And live by her labor!" he exclaimed, drawing his pipe from his
mouth and in knocking out the ash in his anger breaking the stem.
"That a child o' mine should come to that!"

"Iver is your own flesh and blood," persisted the woman, in great
excitement. "How can you be so hard on him? It's just like that
old fowl as pecked her eggs, and we had to wring her neck. It's
like rabbits as eat their own young. Nonsense! You must be
reconciled together. What you have you cannot l