"So you were with my husband, were you? And you're the serpent in his garden, are you?—tempting him, and leading him away from the narrow path. Then perhaps you can inform me where he got his drink from?"
Sam was not the slightest bit discomfited by Martha Trailey's anger. "I only brought 'im 'ome, ma'am," he said, with his customary good-humour. "My pal 'ere, Mr. Tressider, gev 'im a little snifter—ter keep aht the cold hair, as yer might say. 'E'd bin fer a walk dahn ter the river, ter communicate wiv 'is thoughts."
Mrs. Tressider now faced Bert, whom for some inexplicable reason she liked much less than she did Sam.
"You ought to be downright ashamed of yourself, Mr. Tressider. You've ruined my life—wheedling my poor, weak-minded husband away from the fold. Never since he signed the pledge the year we were married, and then started speaking at the Band of Hope, has he touched a drop of drink, and that's twenty-two years come June quarter-day. I remember it well, because the Rev. Duncan Mc—Mc—dear me, what was his name now, William?—McWhipple, was it? No—it must have been McNoddy, or McTavish, or some name like that. Never mind, though. I remember when he filled in the form for my husband to sign, I asked him if he knew of a public-house where we could sell the barrel of ale we had in the cellar. My husband wanted to empty it down the drain, but that seemed such a sinful waste. 'I really don't know of such a public-house, Mrs. Trailey,' the Rev. McWheesey said—-Ah! that was his name; I remember now! And then he told us to try The Flying Horse on the corner, because, he said, the proprietor was Church of England, and would most likely allow us half what we'd paid for the ale, and so—
"So the Rev. McWhat's-his-name was a bit of a lad, eh?" interposed Bert laughingly.
"He was sixty, if he was a day; and as good a preacher as ever came to our chapel. He was a saint, young man—if ever there was one. That's why we got him to marry us. My husband gave him four shillings for himself—two two-shilling pieces. I remember it all just as if it were yesterday. But he died soon after, poor creature."
"Ah-h," sighed Trailey, "so he did." That sleepy-eyed rancher was seated on a box of evaporated apples which stood conveniently just without the tent. "So he did," he repeated absently to himself, being careful to turn well away from his wife's challenging eyes.
Martha Trailey was a smallish woman with faded, yellow hair; and she was a scold. Also she carried the worship of cleanliness to the point where it becomes a nuisance. The husbands of such women never know the glory of dropping cigar-ash on their own carpets, neither do they experience the joy of paddling through the house in muddy boots. They slink about their own homes like lodgers three months in arrears with their board-bill, and unless they go into the furniture-removing business, so that they may with impunity upset other women's rooms, they are likely to look henpecked and soured, and soon begin secretly to wish they were either unmarried or dead, whichever strikes them as being the more preferable state.
Presently Esther emerged from the tent, looking as lovely as the sparkling, spring morning itself. Smiling a greeting at Bert and Sam, she stood listening to the conversation. She wore a white silk blouse, short grey tweed skirt and polished brown shoes. Her hair of burnished gold was drawn back loosely and tied low on her neck. The light from a glittering sun played hide-and-seek in its folds, while tiny currents of breeze wafted a few stray wisps of silken splendour about her face.
Bert was lost in admiration, and showed it, and, not being buried under six feet of earth, Esther rather enjoyed the sensation. Even Sam was constrained to mutter to himself—"Gawd! wot 'air!"