Farmer Bluff raged and swore when she informed him of her determination. But Elspeth only taunted him with his powerlessness to execute one word of all his threats or oaths; and finally, having done her best to rouse his worst passions, she left him to meditate upon his awkward situation.
Just then Hal, happening to get caught in a shower, swung himself up the yard and into the porch.
Elspeth grinned as she let him in.
"He's in an awful temper, that I warn you, Master Hal," she said. "I'd a'most as soon go talk to Blazer as him."
But Hal was not afraid; and before the lapse of many minutes, Farmer Bluff—without a single oath—had told him how things stood.
"Well, now, let's see," said Hal. "What must you do? You must have somebody, that's clear. If you hadn't got this gout just now, it would be different, and you could laugh her in the face,—though I don't know that it would be exactly Christian to laugh the face of a person who 'despitefully used you;' but I mean you could do without her if she was determined not to stay. Or rather," added Hal, his thoughts suddenly taking a leap back to the source of all the difficulty, "you wouldn't be in such a bother at all; because she would never have given notice if you hadn't had to move out of the farm. It's all the gout, you see."
Farmer Bluff moved impatiently upon his chair. It was rather hard to be constantly twitted with that fact—even by Hal; because if it was "all the gout," it was therefore "all his own fault." But he was paid back for his pains with such a twinge in either leg, that he involuntarily moved his arms in their slings; whereupon each finger of each hand seemed to say—"No good, old fellow; you can't escape your punishment; for 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'"
Meanwhile Hal was busy trying to think what could be done.
"Haven't you got somebody?" suggested he at last. "Relations are the best, I think, because they have an interest in you. You must have got a sister, haven't you?"
Farmer Bluff said "No" at first; but afterwards, he changed his mind. "Leastways not one who would come," said he. The matter stood thus. He had a sister once, who married somebody he did not like—a pious man, who would not drink for the sake of good fellowship, and did not swear. So he quarrelled with his sister; and when she wrote and told him that she had a baby boy named after him, he did not answer her; he had never seen or written to her since.