“Then don’t try conclusions with her about Harry Bradley, and happen then thou may keep thy illusion. Katherine’s fault is a grave one, though it often looks like a virtue.”
“I doan’t see what thou means. Faults are faults, and virtues are virtues. I hev niver seen a fault of any kind in her, unless it be wanting more guineas than I can spare her just now, but that is the original sin o’ women as far as I can make out. Whativer is this fault that can look like a virtue?”
“She overdoes everything. She says too little, or too much; she does too little, or too much; she gives too little, or too much. In everything she exceeds. If she likes anyone, she is unreasonable about them; if she dislikes them, she is unjust.”
“I doan’t call that much of a fault—if thou knew anything about farming thou would make little of it. Thou would know that it is the richest land that hes the most weeds in its crop. The plow and the harrow will clear it of weeds and the experience of life will teach Katherine to be less generous with both her feelings and her opinions. Let her overdo, it is a fault that will cure itself.”
“And in the meantime it makes her too positive and insisting. She thinks she is right and she wants others to be right. She is even a bit forceable——”
“And I can tell thee that women as well as men need some force of character, if they mean to do anything with their lives. Why-a! Force is in daily life all that powder is to shot. If our weavers’ wives hed more force in their characters, they wouldn’t watch their children dying of hunger upon their knees and their hearths, they would make their stubborn men go to any kind of a loom. They wouldn’t be bothering themselves about any Bill in Parliament, they would be crying out for bread for their children. We must see about the women and children to-morrow or we shall not be ready for Faith Foster’s visit.”
“To be sure, but we need not think of it to-night. I’m heart weary, Antony. Nobody can give sympathy long unless they turn kind words into kind actions.”
“Then just call Katherine and order a bit of supper in. And I’d like a tankard of home-brewed, and a slice or two of cold mutton. My word, but the mutton bred in our rich meadows is worth eating! Such a fine color, so tender and juicy and full of rich red gravy.”
“I think thou would be better without the tankard. Our ale is four years old, and tha knows what it is at that age. It will give thee a rattling headache. The cask on now is very strong.”
“To be sure it is. A man could look a lion in the face after a couple of glasses of it.”