“That’s because you ’re in love,” said Tilda.  “But, if you’ll listen to me, women ain’t always what you take ’em for.”

“Ain’t they?” he queried.  “I’d be sorry to believe that; though ’twould be ‘elpful, I don’t mind tellin’ you.”

“I’ve known cases—­that is, if you want to be cured—­”

“I do, an’ I don’t,” he groaned.  But it was clear that in the main he did not; for he changed the subject hastily.  “See ’ere, would you mind takin’ ‘old o’ the book an’ checkin’ while I counts out the money.  Total takin’s—­four, three, three—­less ’ire of ’all, four-an’-six—­”

“I can read figures an’ print,” owned Tilda, “but ’andwriting’s too much for me; an’ yours, I dare say, isn’ none o’ the best.”

“I’ve improved it a lot at the night school.  But what is it puzzlin’ you?” he asked, looking up as he counted.

She held out the book, but not as he had handed it.  The light breeze had blown over two or three of its leaves, covering the page of accounts.

“Oh, that?” he stammered, and a blush spread to his ears.  “I didn’ mean you to see—­”

“What is it?”

“Well—­it’s potery, if you must know.  Leastways it’s meant to be potery.  I make it sometimes.”

“Why?”

“To relieve my feelin’s.”

“‘Pears to me your feelin’s want a deal o’ relievin’, one way an’ another.  Read me some.”

“You’re sure you won’t laugh?”

“Bless the man!  ’Ow can I tell till I’ve ’eard it?  Is it meant to be funny?”

“No.”

“Well, then, I’m not likely to laugh.  It don’t come easy to me, any’ow:  I seen too many clowns.”

She handed him the book.  He chose a poem, conquered his diffidence, and began—­

   “Stratford-on-Avon, Stratford-on-Avon—­
     My heart is full of woe: 
    Formerly, once upon a time
     It was not ever so.”

   “The love that then I faltered
     I now am forced to stifle;
    For the case is completely altered
     And I wish I had a rifle.”

   “I wish I was wrecked
     Like Robinson Crusoe,
    But you cannot expect
     A canal-boat to do so.”

“Perhaps I ought to explain, though?” he suggested, breaking off.

“If you don’t mind.”

“You see I got a brother—­a nelder brother, an’ by name ‘Enery; an’ last year he went for a miner in South Africa, at a place that I can’t neither spell nor pronounce till it winds up with ‘bosh.’  So we’ll call it Bosh.”

“Right-o!  But why did he go for that miner?  To relieve ’is feelin’s?”

“You don’t understand.  He went out as a miner, havin’ been a pit-hand at the Blackstone Colliery, north o’ Bursfield.  Well, one week-end—­ about a month before he started—­he took a noliday an’ went a trip with me to Stratford aboard this very boat.  Which for six months past I’d ’ad a neye upon a girl in Stratford.  She was a General—­”