Tom frowned impatiently. "My good girl, that you've not," he said. "I am not going to force food down your throat if you don't want it; but why you persist in saying you like it when you can't swallow half a mouthful, goodness knows. Lord bless us! I am proud of our cooking, as Cousin Tremnell 'ull tell you; but I don't make a meal off the people who don't agree wi' me. Hands off, Timothy! Where are your manners?" For Timothy had surreptitiously stretched out a long-nailed, dirty hand towards the food in Meg's plate. She jumped up with a start at the touch of the idiot, and with a hastily murmured excuse fled from the kitchen. Tom Thorpe gave vent to a long, low whistle.
"It's a pretty business," he remarked; "an' the hottest water Barnabas has ever got into. What had he to do wi' a fine lady, as can't even sit down to table by us?"
"I must say the way she has been trapesing about the country half the morning isn't much like a lady," said Cousin Tremnell.
"Well, I've done. Ye may tell her I've gone out. So she can come and pick up a few more crumbs in peace," he said good-naturedly. "An', I say, cousin, ye might tell her I am not such an ogre as I look, eh? The fact is, I've got so used to myself living here alone wi' dad, that I don't think how I scare other people, unless a stranger comes to show me."
But Cousin Tremnell was still huffy, and didn't see that she had any call to "run after Mrs. Thorpe".
It was not a remarkably good beginning; and the preacher's wife felt much ashamed when she had recovered from her sudden horror.
She took herself to task for her disgust, as if it had been a crime, but could not prevail upon herself to return to the kitchen. Tom's deformity did not cause her the least repulsion; it was as it were accidental, and the man himself inspired her with respect; but Timothy seemed to her like some horrible brute, whose very likeness to humanity made him the more repulsive.
She sat down on the wide sill of the staircase window, and tried to forget the troublesome details of this rough-edged life, the while her eyes rested on the reed beds bowing in the wind, and the low grey sky, where a buzzard hung poised.
Thus seated, she clenched her hands; and, presently, began to sing very softly to herself, to the tune of an old Roundhead battle hymn. The inspiration of hard fighting was in it, and it did her good.
In the middle of a bar, she became aware that some one was listening; and, turning round, saw Mr. Thorpe standing on the stair above her.