“The furniture,” Mrs. Mar went on, looking round the room, “is quite dilapidated enough without your making it worse.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, I suppose I must go and attend to those children, and the supper. But don’t let him kick the furniture, Nathaniel, even if he is the son of your adored Galbraith. The owner of all that Rock Hill Mining property didn’t trouble himself much about you.”
“Yes, he did. He was a very good friend,” and Mar made a slight movement as of one clearing a space in the air before setting to work again.
His wife, in her progress to the door, halted mechanically in the middle of the patch, as though the momentary weight of her presence there would leave behind a subjugating effect. But she murmured absently: “I must have another hunt for—” Then, turning with sudden animation: “Is it you who’ve taken away my tack-hammer?” she demanded of Jack.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, understand,” she went on, precisely as though he had admitted his responsibility for the disappearance of the tool, “understand you’re to sit there till supper, and this is the last of your playing about that dirty duck-pond.”
“I forgot it was Sunday,” he said, penitent.
“Sunday or any other day—never again.”
Jack gasped with incredulity, and then, slowly, “You don’t weally mean we’re never to go to ve pond for ever and ever!”