Page:Adventures of Susan Hopley (Volume 1).pdf/90

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SUSAN HOPLEY.
77

fine people with carriages and horses, and ladies in their silks and their satins, and their hoops, and what not; and one day they found out that our slopping about in the grounds with our pails was a nuisance, and not to be tolerated, no how; so they took the privilege from us, and gave us this here pump in exchange—but the water never was the same thing."

"And what came of it?" said another—"why they never had no luck arter. The very next summer the little boy, that was the only son they had, fell into the well and was drowned afore ever they missed him; and then when it was too late they boarded it up."


"Aye," said the crone, "they went to the dogs from that time, and many said it was a judgment on 'em for taking away the privilege of the poor that we'd had time out o'mind. First, the boy was drowned, and the mother pined away after him of a broken heart, then one went, then another. At last Squire Remorden, as owned the place at that time, brought home a beautiful foreign lady—some said she was his wife, some that she wasn't—howbeit, she sang like a robin-redbreast—but one night there came a carriage with four horses, galloping through the street like mad, till it stopped at