“Keep your tongue between your teeth. You’ll want it to give me an order with before you’re a week older.”
“Never! I’d as soon shoe a horse with a hairpin.” He snatched up his cages decisively, one in each hand, and the adder rolled on to the ground, bursting its strawy cerements.
The girl’s grey eyes flashed steel-like. “And can’t I drive as well as Gran’fer? And don’t I know the roads?” And she uplifted her horn from her girdle and blew a resounding blast of defiance. It set all the cocks crowing behind the house and brought Caleb bustling from within it.
“Did you summon me, Jinny?” he asked. “Gracious, Will, whatever you got there?” His eyes expanded to see the sinuous animals swirling fiercely against their wires; in coming nearer to peer at them, he stumbled over the snake and uttered a cry.
“It’s all right,” called Jinny. “It’s dead.”
“You killed it, Willie?” he asked.
“With a drumstick,” said Jinny gravely.
“Fiddlesticks, father!” said Will angrily.
“Oi don’t care what sort o’ stick you killed that with,” said Caleb, “so long as it’s a dead corpse. But do ye come in now—mother’s grousin’ about the tea gittin’ cold.”
“I like cold tea. Go in, father. I’m just coming.” He harked back to her blast of rebellion. “You may be able to drive, and you may know the roads. But can’t you see how unnatural it is, you perched up there and blowing a horn like Dick Burrage of the County Flyer?”