“Well, I suppose you mean to run down Mr Featherstone,” said Jenny, pouting. “You’re always running him down. And there isn’t a bit of use in it—not with me. I like him, and I always shall. He’s such a gentleman, and always so soft-spoken. But I believe you like that clod-hopper Tom Fenton, ever so much better. I can’t abide him.”
“There’s a deal more of the feather than the stone about Robin Featherstone, lass. If he be a stone, he’s a rolling one. Hasn’t he been in three places since he came here?”
“Yes, because they didn’t use him right in none of ’em. Wanted him to do things out of his place, and such like. Why, at Hampstead Hall, they set him to chop wood.”
“Well, why not?” asked Mrs Lavender, knitting away.
“Because it wasn’t his place,” answered Jenny, indignantly. “It made his hands all rough, and he’s that like a gentleman he couldn’t stand it.”
“Tom Fenton would have done it, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“As if it would have mattered to Tom Fenton, with his great red hands! They couldn’t be no rougher than they are, if he chopped wood while Christmas. Besides, it’s his trade—wood-chopping is. Mr Featherstone’s some’at better nor a carpenter.”
“They’re honest hands, if they are red, Jenny.”
“And he’s a cast in his eyes.”
“Scarcely. Anyhow, he’s none in his heart.”