At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, muttering and calling ‘Affery woman!’ all the way. Affery still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her.
‘Oh Jeremiah!’ cried Affery, waking. ‘What a start you gave me!’
‘What have you been doing, woman?’ inquired Jeremiah. ‘You’ve been rung for fifty times.’
‘Oh Jeremiah,’ said Mistress Affery, ‘I have been a-dreaming!’
Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the illumination of the kitchen.
‘Don’t you know it’s her tea-time?’ he demanded with a vicious grin, and giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery’s chair a kick.
‘Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don’t know what’s come to me. But I got such a dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went—off a-dreaming, that I think it must be that.’
‘Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!’ said Mr Flintwinch, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the kitchen here—just here.’
Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held down his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his light and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls.