An' I up and told him he was a brute to go ill-treatin' a sickly fellow as couldn't pay him back.
That made him as cross as vinegar, an' when Jim began to be about with me ov a Sunday sometimes, instead of him, he got madder and madder.

An' Jim asked me to marry him--he begged of me--an' I didn't know what to say.

For Westall had asked me twice; an' I was afeard of Jim's health, an' the low wages he'd get, an' of not bein' strong myself.

But one day I was going up a lane into Tudley End woods, an' I heard George Westall on tother side of the hedge with a young dog he was training.

Somethin' crossed him, an' he flew into a passion with it.