"Do as ye choose; it'll be a bad day for us both when I take to saying ye must do a thing because I've a right," he answered.
The moment the door had closed upon his brother Tom swore.
"Do 'ee want him made o' ice?" he said. "Why didn't ye give him a word or a kiss, lass? Barnabas has no end of patience with ye. If ye were my wife——"
"What would you do?" said Meg, looking up with a sudden flash in her grey eyes. "Beat me? I have seen husbands do that; it generally answers, I suppose, if they go on long enough."
"Hullo! we've struck a bit o' fire this time. Thank the Lord for that!" said Tom. "But ye've a nice opinion of us, haven't ye? Well, there's no knowing what atrocities I mightn't ha' gone in for, if a merciful Providence hadn't made it clear impossible for me to marry."
Nevertheless, when Meg came down the next day looking whiter and shyer than usual, he held out his hand to her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes. "Ye'd much better be friends wi' me, Barnabas' wife," he said. "Happen ye'll improve our manners in time."
"I oughtn't to have been angry," said Meg quickly; for she was at least as susceptible to kindness as to unkindness. "I was all wrong, and one ought to obey one's husband."
"Oh! ye do plenty o' that," cried Tom. "Lord love ye, my dear, if ye obeyed him a bit less, an' liked him a bit more, Barnabas 'ud not quarrel wi' the change, and he might bide at home a spell."
Which last suggestion made Meg feel sick at heart, with a half self-reproachful, wholly miserable sensation, that fairly frightened her at times.
She went with the preacher that afternoon to a tiny hamlet, some miles off. She had not accompanied him of late, and it was strange to find herself alone with him again.