Vassie was off before her mother had time to change her mind, and John-James began slowly to rinse the china through the darkened water, on whose surface the grease lay in a shimmering arabesque. Annie went round the kitchen rasping the chairs over the stone floor and making futile dabs at their seats with her apron. She had that curious uncertainty of aim usually seen in dogs, who never seem to be sure of touching the object at which they paw.
The head and shoulders of Archelaus, furze-laden, passed the window, apparently floating through the luminous warmth of afternoon that filled the courtyard as through the depths of the sea. The illusion was shattered when he kicked the door open and, striding in, flung his burden on to the dying fire. The sudden glow that leapt up revealed Tom ensconced in the settle, cleaning his boots with a pat of butter stolen from the dairy. He continued his occupation quite unmoved by the fulminations of his mother, bending his ruddy head over the boots. Tom was the "red-headed Dane" who crops up generation after generation in some Cornish families.
"Hold your tongue, mother," he said at last, holding one boot at arm's length and cocking his head sideways the better to admire the effect of the buttering; "I'm going to look decent to-night if no one else is. And so I don't mind a-tellen' 'ee—" with a sudden slip into the dialect that he studiously trained himself to avoid. Any lapse of the kind meant that Tom was not in a mood to be trifled with, and Annie turned suddenly to Archelaus.
"Where's the cheild?" she asked.
"I set'n to gather bullock's glows for th' fire—we shall want more'n furze for to-night," replied Archelaus. "Give I a light to take overstairs; 'tes time I was cleanen' of myself. I'm gwain to run with the Neck to-night."
Annie went obediently to a cupboard and took out a little cup of oil in which a wick lay, the tongue of it drooping over the cup's rim. She lit it with a twig from the fire and stood looking at Archelaus for a moment with the cup in her hand. The footlight effect softened her prominently-boned face and struck some of the over-strong colour from her cheeks—she showed a faint hint of the prettiness that had attracted the old Squire.
"An' who is it you'm thinken' will be at the door for 'ee to kiss when you get in wi' the Neck?" she asked grimly.
Archelaus shuffled from one big foot to the other.
"Jenifer Keast, maybe?" pursued his mother.
"Happen Jenifer, happen another. A maid's a maid," mumbled the disconcerted Archelaus.