Then, when he had gone, Noah Pearn endeavoured to cheer his customer.
"Us have got some hot ale here wi' a nutmeg and a bit 'o toast in it, my dear," he said. "You sup a drop and 'twill brace your sinews. The cold have touched 'e perhaps."
"Thank you, Noah," said Mr. Weekes, and took the glass. "You're very good, I'm sure. I've had a lot on my mind to-day."
"She'd be a fine woman, if there was a thought less lemon in her," said Taverner soothingly.
"She is a fine woman," answered Mr. Weekes, "—fine enough for anything; but fine weather's no good if you'm bedridden, and a fine woman's no good to her husband if she won't—however, us needn't wash our dirty linen in public. We've all our defects."
"Almost too high-spirited, if I may venture to say so," declared Mr. Churchward. "She has the courage of the masculine gender."
"So have I, if I was let bide," explained Philip. "That's the mischief of it. If I'd been a sort of weak man, ready to go under, and do woman's work, and play second fiddle happily, it wouldn't have mattered; but I ban't at all that sort of man by nature, and it hurts my feelings to be made to do it."
"I'm sure you'm too wise to rebel, however," said Mr. Huggins. "'Twas much the same with me, and often I wish I'd been so sensible as you; but my manly spirit wouldn't brook nothing of that sort. 'I won't have it!' I used to say in my fierce way. But I'm sorry now, because she might have been alive yet if I'd been a thought easier with her."
Noah Pearn winked behind the back of Mr. Huggins at the company generally, for it was well remembered that Valentine's vanished partner had ruled him with a rod of iron.
Mr. Weekes, however, showed no amusement. In his mind he was retracing certain painful recent incidents.