"What's wrong?" he repeated viciously. "You are. I'm fed up with your insolence. You take yourself off to the Pomfret Arms. The landlord there may want your money and your sauce. I've had enough of both."
The young woman smiled. If, as she expected, and not without good reason, William Saint became her husband, he might turn out, with discreet handling, a docile helpmeet. Within twenty-four hours, she had urged him to "out" Habakkuk Mucklow at the first opportunity. Saint had hesitated, observing angrily that he detested Uncle, and would gladly attend his funeral. At the same time, the man brought custom to the tavern. If he left it, some of his cronies might leave with him. Whereupon the young woman remarked scornfully: "If you can stick it, I've nothing more to say." And then she had eyed him slowly from heel to head, as if taking stock of an animal not quite sound. Saint knew that his manhood had been challenged by a woman who was becoming indispensable to him.
Uncle rose, tankard in hand. His smile was so disarming that Saint, probably, believed him to be harmless. Accordingly he scowled the more fiercely as Uncle slowly approached him. An expert of the prize ring, comparing the two men physically, would have said, off-hand, that age could never fight youth on equal terms. Saint was stoutly built, heavy in the shoulder, with good underpinning. He may have lacked two inches of Uncle's height.
Uncle feigned nervousness, luring Saint on. Had the landlord been perfectly sober, he might have suspected guile. Whisky had inflamed his mind and paralysed his judgment.
"Don't 'ee talk that way, Mr. Saint. I be old enough to be your father. And not the man I was."
Saint exploded.
"If you don't walk out, I'll kick you out."
Uncle almost cooed at him.
"What brave words to an old gaffer past sixty! And before ladies, too."
The sly emphasis on "ladies" provoked a titter from a granfer warmed by hot ale.