By Trewhella's side stood his dog, a coarse-coated, wall-eyed brute, half bobtail, half collie. Much alike seemed the pair of them, snarling together in the path.
Jenny whitened. She had not yet seen so much of the wolf in her husband. Castleton looked at her, asking mutely whether he should knock Trewhella backwards or whether, as the world must be truckled to, he should keep quiet.
"Shut up," said Jenny to her husband. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What do you think I am? Your servant? Mind, or I shall tell you off as you've never been told off yet. Let me pass, please, and what's more let my friend pass. Come on, Fuz. Take no notice of him. He's potty. He's soft. Him! Pooh!"
She gathered her skirts round her as if to negotiate mud and swept past Zachary, who, all wolf now, recoiled for his spring. Castleton, however, seized his wrist, saying tranquilly:
"I'm afraid, Mr. Trewhella, you're not very well. Good-bye, Mrs. Trewhella. I'll come round this afternoon, then."
Jenny passed on towards Bochyn and Trewhella turned to follow her at once; but Castleton still held him, and whenever Jenny looked round he was still holding him. She waited, however, at the bottom of the garden for Zachary's return, strewing the ground by her feet with spikes of veronica blooms. Presently he appeared, his dog running before him, and at the sight of Jenny shook wildly his fists.
"You witch," he cried. "How have 'ee the heart to make me so mad? But I deserve it. Oh, God Almighty, I deserve it. I that went a-whoring away from my own country."
"Shut up," Jenny commanded. "And talk decently in front of me, even if I am your wife."
"I took a bride from the Moabites," he moaned. "I forsook Thy paths, O Lord, and went lusting after the heathen."
He fell on his knees in the shining November mud; Jenny regarded him as people regard a man in a fit.