He caught them behind a clump of laurel.
'By Jerry, here's the very chap! Well, you're a fine fellow, Jos, never to send your father as much as a twist o' baccy on such an occasion, and to leave him to travel all these miles to find ye out!' 'First, who is this ?' said Joshua Halborough with pale dignity, waving his hand towards the buxom woman with the great earrings.
'Dammy, the mis'ess! Your step-mother! Didn't you know I'd married?
She helped me home from market one night, and we came to terms, and struck the bargain.

Didn't we, Selinar ?' 'Oi, by the great Lord an' we did!' simpered the lady.
'Well, what sort of a place is this you are living in ?' asked the millwright.

'A kind of house-of-correction, apparently ?' Joshua listened abstractedly, his features set to resignation.

Sick at heart he was going to ask them if they were in want of any necessary, any meal, when his father cut him short by saying, 'Why, we've called to ask ye to come round and take pot-luck with us at the Cock-and-Bottle, where we've put up for the day, on our way to see mis'ess's friends at Binegar Fair, where they'll be lying under canvas for a night or two.

As for the victuals at the Cock I can't testify to 'em at all; but for the drink, they've the rarest drop of Old Tom that I've tasted for many a year.' 'Thanks; but I am a teetotaller; and I have lunched,' said Joshua, who could fully believe his father's testimony to the gin, from the odour of his breath.