Volume Three—Chapter Seven.
Where John Maine had been.
It was a very miserable breakfast at the farm the next morning, for old Bultitude was looking very black and angry, and it was quite evident that poor little Jessie had been in tears.
“What time did that scoundrel go out?” said the farmer, stabbing a piece of ham savagely with his fork, and after cutting a piece off as if it were a slice off an enemy, he knocked out the brains of an egg with a heavy dash of his tea-spoon.
“Don’t call him a scoundrel, uncle dear,” sobbed Jessie. “I don’t know.”
“I will, I tell ’ee,” cried the old man furiously. “I won’t hev him hanging about here any longer, a lungeing villain. Leaving his wuck and going off, and niver coming back all neet. Look thee here, Jess; if thee thinks any more about that lad, I’ll send thee away.”
“No, no, uncle dear, don’t say that,” cried the girl, going up and clinging to him. “He may have been taken ill, or a dozen things may have happened.”
“O’ coorse. Theer, I niver see such fools as girls are; the bigger blackguard a man is, the more the women tak’s his part. Sit thee down, bairn; theer, I aint cross wi’ you; I on’y want to do what’s best for you, for I wean’t see thee wed to a shack.”
He kissed poor Jessie affectionately, and bade her “make a good breakfast,” but the poor girl could not touch a morsel.
“Hillo! who’s this?” said the farmer, a few minutes later. “Oh, it’s young Brough. Come in, lad, come in.”