‘Don’t lie there! Get up!’
Having helped her to rise, or rather hauled her up by the arm, he went on to say:
‘Listen to me, young lady; and don’t whine when you have no occasion, or I may make some for you. If I find him in my house again, or find that you have seen him in anybody else’s house, you’ll repent it. If you are not deaf and dumb to everything that concerns me, unless you have my leave to hear and speak, you’ll repent it. If you don’t obey exactly what I order, you’ll repent it. Now, attend. What’s the time?’
‘It struck eight a minute ago.’
He looked towards her intently; and said, with a laboured distinctness, as if he had got the words off by heart:
‘I have been travelling day and night, and am tired. I have lost some money, and that don’t improve me. Put my supper in the little off-room below, and have the truckle-bed made. I shall sleep there to-night, and maybe to-morrow night; and if I can sleep all day to-morrow, so much the better, for I’ve got trouble to sleep off, if I can. Keep the house quiet, and don’t call me. Mind! Don’t call me. Don’t let anybody call me. Let me lie there.’
She said it should be done. Was that all?
‘All what? You must be prying and questioning!’ he angrily retorted. ‘What more do you want to know?’
‘I want to know nothing, Jonas, but what you tell me. All hope of confidence between us has long deserted me!’
‘Ecod, I should hope so!’ he muttered.