"
The event, however, proved otherwise. Before the submerged weir was
reached a kindly branch among the willows, stretching gnarled hands
just above the flood level, gave the ready aid that no louts could
offer. Here Dale contrived to hang until people came from the mill and
fished him and his now unconscious burden out of their hazardous
predicament.
This little incident so stimulated Dale's servants that they began to
work for him quite enthusiastically. It occurred to them that he was
not only a good plucked 'un, but that, however hard his manner, his
heart must possess a big soft spot in it, or he could never have so
"put himself about for a rammucky pot-swilling feller like Abe Veale."
Veale was truly a feckless, good-for-little creature. By trade a
hurdle-maker, he lived in one of the few remaining mud cottages on the
skirts of Hadleigh Upper Wood, and in his hovel he had bred an immense
family. His wife had long since died; her mother, a toothless old
crone, kept house for him and was supposed to look after the younger
children; but generally the Veales and their domestic arrangements
were considered as a survival of a barbaric state of society and a
disgrace in these highly polished modern times.
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