“’Twas his way of giving us a warning, nevertheless,” declared Honor Haycraft. “Or,” she added, “seeing as I was a red-haired woman, and thinking maybe that I had a short temper, she may have reckoned that—”
“Not at all, not at all,” interrupted the husband, hastily. “Do ’e think I’d have stood any such idea? God’s my judge, I’d have hit the man in the mouth if he’d said a word against you or your butivul colour.”
“If I thought she’d taken a dislike to me, because I was red, I’d never look at the woman,” said Honor. “For that matter, I’m comelier far than her, though I say so.”
“An’ comelier than any other woman at Postbridge, or on all Dartymoor either,” declared Abel, devoutly.
“I’ll be civil to her, then, but no more. An’ I wish her hadn’t brought over that gert dish of Irish stew the day us comed in an’ were sinking for a morsel to eat; for us ate it, an’ licked the bones, an’ now she’ve got a hold on us.”
“Not at all,” said the larger-minded man. “’Tis a poor spirit as can’t stomach a kindness without worriting to pay it back. Us’ll have a chance of doing her a good turn for sartain, living at her door same as we do. Just let things go their own way, an’ they’ll go right. We’m all Christian creatures, thank God, an’ there’s no reason because we live in a outlandish sort of place like this here that we should forget it.”
“All the same,” declared his plump, red girl, pouting, “I could wish as Mr. Mogridge hadn’t spoke them words. He’ve hurt my pride. I wasn’t going to jump down their throats. I’m not that sort.”
“’Twas a bit chilly like, perhaps; but he’m older than us, an’ wiser, an’ he meant well.”
“He’m not wiser than you be, anyway. I believe, if us knowed, you’d find you made better money than what he do.”
“Us’ll leave it at that, then; an’ now us’ll go to sleep, if you please.”