Mr Darvell avoided his wife’s gaze.
“How should I know where he is?” he answered sullenly. “I haven’t seen him, not for these two hours. He’s foolin’ round somewheres with the other lads.”
“That’s not like our Frank,” said Mrs Darvell, giving an anxious look round at the tall clock. “Why, it’s gone eight,” she went on. “What can have got him?”
Her eyes rested suspiciously on her husband, who shifted about uneasily.
“Can’t you let the lad bide?” he said; “ye’ll not rest till ye make him a greater ninny nor he is by natur. He might as well ha’ bin a gell, an better, for all the good he’ll ever be.”
“How did he tackle the ploughin’?” asked Mrs Darvell, pausing in the act of setting aside Frank’s supper on the dresser.
“Worser nor ever,” replied her husband contemptuously. “He’ll never be good for nowt, but to bide at home an’ keep’s hands clean. Why, look at Eli Redrup, not older nor our Frank, an’ can do a man’s work already.”
“Eli Redrup!” exclaimed Mrs Darvell in a shrill tone of disgust; “you’d never even our lad to a great fullish lout like Eli Redrup, with a head like a turmut! If Frank isn’t just so fierce as some lads of his age, he’s got more sense than most.”
“I tell ’ee, he’ll never be good for nowt,” replied her husband doggedly, as he resumed his seat in the chimney-corner and lighted his pipe.
“Onless,” he added after a moment’s pause, “he comes to be a schoolmaster; and it haggles me to think that a boy of mine should take up a line like that.”