“My grandfather has been ill, Mrs. Jool.”
“Yes, rich people’s sickness—there’s no great danger; but the young gent there, that’s another thing, eh? I tell you all the village is talking about it.”
“About what, Mrs. Jool?” asked Francis, indignantly.
“Your neglecting the child for——”
“Listen to me, Mrs. Jool,” interrupted Francis, in a calm and firm tone: “neither you nor the village have any right to interfere with my business.”
“Hum! the month is up, and a week gone in the second, and when Trineke[1] is not paid the boy suffers for it.”
“You shall be paid to-morrow; but I warn you if the child suffer on account of a week’s delay in payment, either at your hands or your daughter’s, I will take him away from you. To-morrow, or the day after, I shall come to see him myself, and I shall make inquiries of the neighbours.”
“What! You would disgrace me and my daughter by taking him away? You try it! we shall then see who is the strongest.”
And the insolent, vulgar woman set her arms akimbo, as she whined out—
“This is what one gets for defending great folks.”