"KATHERINE WHEATMAN, her book,
God give her grease to larn to cook.
At the Hanyards.
Jul. 1739."
The simple words stung me like angry hornets. Our red-headed Kate was no scholar, but at any rate her reading was more useful in our little world than mine; for this was where she learned the artistry of the dainties and devices Jack Dobson and I were so fond of. And if I did not soon learn to do something well, even were it only how to farm my five hundred acres to a profit, Kate's cooking would really require the miraculous aid suggested in her unintentional and, to me, biting epigram. I put the book down, and gave over the hunt for my Virgil. It would probably be useless in any case, since Kate had a cunning all her own, and had surely bestowed it far beyond any searching of mine. I contented myself with a fair reprisal, stowing a stray ribbon of hers in my breeches' pocket, and sat down to smoke. My pipe would not draw, and I smashed it in trying to make it.
The tall oak clock tick-tocked on in the house-place, and Jane sang on at her churning in the dairy across the yard. I sat gazing at the fire, where I could see nothing but Jack Dobson in his martial grandeur, and I hated him for his greatness, and despised myself for my pettiness. All the same it was unendurable, and it was a relief to see Joe Braggs tiptoeing carefully across the yard dairywards. The rascal should have been patching a gap in the hedge of Ten-acres, and here he was, foraging for a jug of ale. He could wheedle Jane as easily as he could snare a rabbit, but I would scarify him out of his five senses, the hulk.
The singing stopped, and then the churning, and five minutes later I crept up to the kitchen door, which was ajar. There was my lord Joe, a jug of ale in hand, his free arm round Jane's neck. How endurable these two found life at the Hanyards! I caught a fragment of their gossip.
"Be there such things as rale quanes, Jin?"
"Of course," she replied. "There's pictures of 'em in one of Master Noll's books. Crowns on their yeds, too."
"There's one on 'em down 'tour house, Jin, but she ain't got no crown. But bless thee, wench, I'd sooner kiss thee than look at fifty quanes."
Jane yelped as I murdered an incipient kiss by knocking the jug out of his hand across the kitchen, but in kicking him out of doors I tripped over a bucket of water, and about half a score fine dace flopped miserably on the wet floor.
"Dunna carry on a' that'n, Master Noll," said Joe. "I only com' up t'ouse to bring you them daceys."