“She’s in, unless she’s out,” said Dan unanswerably. “And her tongue’s in, too. It’s at home, that is. Was this morning, anyhow. What dost thou want of her?”
“Well,” said Avice, hesitating, “I want her advice—”
“Then thou wants what thou’lt get plenty of,” said Dan, with a comical twist of his mouth, as he turned over some long nails to find a suitable one. “I’ll be fain if thou’lt cart away a middling lot, for there’s more coming my way than I’ve occasion for at this present.”
Avice laughed. “I daresay Aunt is overworked a bit,” she said. “Perhaps I can help her, Uncle Dan. Folks are apt to lose their tempers when they are tired.”
“Some folks are apt to lose ’em whether they are tired or not,” said the smith, with a shake of his grizzled head. “I’ve got six lasses, and four on ’em takes after her. I could manage one, and maybe I might tackle two; but when five on ’em gets a-top of a chap, why, he’s down afore he knows it. I’m a peaceable man enough if they’d take me peaceable. But them five rattling tongues, that gallops faster than Sir Otho’s charger up to the Manor—eh, I tell thee what, Avice, they do wear a man out!”
“Poor Uncle Dan! I should think they do. But are all the girls at home? I thought Mildred and Emma were to be bound apprentices in Lincoln.”
“Fell through wi’ Mildred,” said the smith. “Didn’t offer good enough; and She”—by which pronoun he usually designated his vixenish wife—“wouldn’t hear on it. Emma’s bound, worse luck! I could ha’ done wi’ Emma. She and Bertha’s the only ones as can be peaceable, like me.”
“Mildred’s still at home, then?”
“Mildred’s at home yet. And so’s El’nor, and so’s Susanna, and so’s Ankaret; and every one on ’em’s tongue’s worse nor t’other. And”—a very heavy sigh—“so’s She!”
Avice knew that Uncle Dan was usually a man of fewer words than this. For him to be thus loquacious showed very strong emotion or irritation of some sort. She went round to the back door, and before she reached it, she heard enough to let her guess the sort of welcome she might expect to receive.