At the Owls’ House in the meanwhile economy was still the rage. Teresa’s first step was to send the cattle off to market. In vain did Bohenna expostulate, pointing out that the stock had not yet come to condition and further there was no market. It was useless. Teresa would not listen to reason; into Penzance they went and were sold for a song. After them she pitched pigs, poultry, goats and the dun pony. Her second step was to discharge the second hind, Davy. Once more Bohenna protested. He could hardly keep the place going as it was, he said. The moor was creeping in to right and left, the barn thatch tumbling, the banks were down, the gates falling to pieces. He could not be expected to be in more than two places at once. Teresa replied with more sound than sense and a shouting match ensued, ending in Teresa screaming that she was mistress and that if Bohenna didn’t shut his mouth and obey orders she’d pack him after Davy.
But if Teresa bore hard on others she sacrificed herself as well. Not a single new dress did she order that year, and even went to the length of selling two brooches, her second best cloak and her third best pair of earrings. Parish feasts, races, bull-baitings and cock-fights she resolutely eschewed; an occasional stroll down the Cove and a pot of ale at the Kiddlywink was all the relaxation she allowed herself. By these self-denying ordinances she was able to foot Eli’s school bills and pay interest on her debts, but her temper frayed to rags. She railed at Martha morning, noon and night, threw plates at Wany and became so unbearable that Bohenna carried all his meals afield with him.
Eli came home for a few days’ holiday at midsummer, but spent most of his waking hours at Roswarva.
On his last evening he went ferreting with Bohenna. The banks were riddled with rabbit sets, but so overgrown were they it was almost impossible to work the fitchets. Their tiny bells tinkled here and there, thither and hither in the dense undergrowth, invisible and elusive as the clappers of derisive sprites. They gamboled about, rejoicing in their freedom, treating the quest of fur as a secondary matter. Bohenna pursued them through the thorns, shattering the holy hush of evening with blasphemies.
“This ought to be cut back, rooted out,” Eli observed.
The old hind took it as a personal criticism and turned on him, a bramble scratch reddening his cheek, voice shaking with long-suppressed resentment. “Rooted out, saith a’! Cut back! Who’s goin’ do et then? Me s’pose.”
He held out his knotted fists, a resigned ferret swinging in each.
“Look you—how many hands have I got? Two edden a? Two only. But your ma do think each o’ my fingers is a hand, I b’lieve. Youp! Comin’ through!”
A rabbit shot out of a burrow on the far side of the hedge, the great flintlock bellowed and it turned somersaults as neatly as a circus clown.