"Dear me; but you will, I hope."
"Not to you, anyway."
"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.
But I'd a reason for askin'."
"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be."
"True--true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry
agen."
"Aw? Who by?"
"Providence."
Naomi had treated Long Oliver badly in days gone by, but could still
talk to him with more freedom than to other men. Still standing with
a hand on her hip, she let fall a horrible sentence about the
Almighty--all the more horrible in that it came deliberately, without
emphasis, and from quiet lips.
"Woman!" cried a voice above them.
They turned, looked up, and saw the bent figure of a man framed in the
street doorway. This was William Geake, who walked in from Gantick
every Saturday to collect the sixpences and shillings of Vellan's
Rents for its landlord, a well-to-do wine and spirit merchant at
Tregarrick. As a man of indisputable probity and an unwearying walker,
Geake was entrusted with many odd jobs of this kind in the country
round, filling in with them such idle corners as his trade of
carpenter and undertaker to Gantick village might leave in the six
working days.
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