"Mamma! Stop it! Do please remember that I'm grown up now, and may understand some of the things you are talking about."
"Ah, my girl, you'll understand well enough if you ever get a drunkard for a husband. And you'd better watch yourself with that young fellow next door but one. Those flighty young men who wear velvet corduroy breeches generally come to a bad end. I remember the Rev.——"
"Mamma! I won't listen. Here are Sam and Mr. Tressider coming this way now.... How do I look in this old blouse?"
Esther hurriedly disappeared within the Trailey tent, where, among many other things, a mirror was conveniently kept.
The two young men were indeed approaching. Bert, ignoring formalities, commenced chatting with Mrs. Trailey. Sam, who had noticed the sparks falling from the good lady's eyes, went and assisted her husband to tie his horse to the wagon. Tying knots in halter-shanks was a problem in advanced mathematics for Trailey, and one which threatened everlastingly to remain as much of a mystery. He had tied hundreds of men to annual insurance premiums for the rest of their lives—making a neat job, too; but when it came to tying a horse to a wagon-wheel with a bit of rope, well, that was not so easy.
"I trust the howling didn't upset you the other night," Bert was saying. "It was rather an unearthly row, wasn't it?"
"Yes; and they say those animals are ferocious and will attack women and children when they are in packs and famished."
Mrs. Trailey was inclined to sacrifice everything to fluency. She turned towards Sam, who with Trailey had strolled up to the tent. She was just going off into another reminiscent flight, when the little man broke in:
"Them animals are skulkin' cowards, missis." He had evidently overheard Mrs. Trailey's last remark. "They ain't got no more nerve nor a sixpenny rabbit. That one the uvver night shut up when me an' yore good 'usband 'ere went ahtside an' made a noise like a dyin' sheep."
Mrs. Trailey went for Sam as though she had known him for years. Her face reddened, and her greenish eyes flashed fire.