JUDITH HART, will ye just carry the ale-cans a little more on the balance? Can't ye mind that the foam is dripping like suds over yer hands, and wetting the sand on the floor till it's all in puddles?"
This sharp remonstrance came from the mistress of the house in which Judith was barmaid, and chief attraction. The public-room was crowded that night, not only with its old guests, but by strangers on their way from a neighboring town, where a monthly fair was held. The girl gave her head a toss, as this reprimand pointed out her delinquency, and sat the two ale-cups she carried down upon the nearest table, with a dash that sent both foam and beer running over it in ruddy rivulets.
"If you're not pleased with the way I serve customers, there's plenty more that would be glad of doing it better. I'm not to be clamored at, anyway, so long as there's other places ready for me."
"An' a pretty prize they'd get!" rejoined the landlady, putting her hands a-kimbo, and nodding her head with such angry vehemence, that the borders of her cap rose and fluttered like the feathers of a rageful bantam. "It's all well enough while there's none of the better-to-do sort wanting to be served; but when they come! Hoity-toity! My lady tosses her head at commoners, and scorns to heed the knock of a workman's can on the table, as if she were a born princess, and he a beggar. I can tell ye what, lass, this wasn't the way I got to be mistress, after serving from a girl at the tap."
"And what if I didn't care that forever being mistress of a place like this!" cried Judith, snapping her fingers over the dripping cups, and shaking her own handsome head in defiance of the fluttering cap, with all it surmounted. "As if I didn't look forward to something better than that, though I have demeaned myself to serve out your stale beer till I'm sick of it."
"Ah! ha! I understand. One can do that with half an eye," answered the irate dame, casting a glance over at young Storms, who sat at one of the tables, sipping his wine and laughing quietly over the contest. "But have a care of yourself. It may come about that chickens counted in the shell never live to pip."
Judith turned her great eyes full of wrathful appeal on Storms, and burst into a scornful laugh, which the young man answered by a look of blank unconcern.
"You hear her! You hear her, with her insults and her tyrannies; sneering at me as if I was the dirt under her feet!" the girl cried out, stamping upon the sanded floor, "and not one of you to say a word."
"How should we?" said Storms, with a laugh. "It's a tidy little fight as it stands. We are only waiting to see which will get the best of it. Who here wants to bet? I'll lay down half a sovereign on the lass."
As he tossed a bit of gold on the table, Storms gave the barmaid a look over his shoulder, that fell like ice upon her wrath. She shrunk back with a nervous laugh, and said, with a degree of meekness that astonished all in the room, "Now, I will have no betting on me or the mistress here. We are both a bit fiery; but it doesn't last while a candle is being snuffed. I always come round first; don't I now, mistress?"