The prompt arrival of Ravens made a break, but she had to cancel with thanks her request for his services with the cart, and then, when the old man was settled at his Bible, and her bonnet and shawl were on, she collapsed in the ante-room, sinking down on the chest in which she had hoarded Will’s provisions, and feeling her resolution oozing away with every tick of the Dutch clock. Impossible to whip up a pseudo-gaiety, to make the tour of all these inquisitive faces! And through the lassitude of her whole being pierced every now and then her grandfather’s voice, crying “Tush, you foolish woman!” She knew it was not meant for her, but for an imagined Martha whose texts he was confuting, but it sounded dismally apposite, and when once he declared “Wiser folks than you knowed it all afore you was born,” she bowed her head as before the human destiny.
When the clock struck nine, he came stalking in. “Why, Jinny! Ain’t to-day Friday?”
She raised a miserable face. “Yes, but I’m going to-morrow instead!”
“To-morrow be dangnationed!” he cried, upset. “Oi’ve, never missed my Friday yet.”
“But I don’t feel like going to-day.”
“That’ll never do, Jinny. Ye’ll ruin my business with your whimwhams and mulligrubs. And it don’t yarn enough as it is.”
“There’s no competition—it doesn’t matter now.”
“And is that your thanks to the Lord for drowndin’ Pharaoh and his chariot and hosses?”
But she put her head back in her hands. “Do let me be!” she snapped.
“Don’t ye feel well, Jinny?” he said, with a change of tone. “Have ye got shoots o’ pain in your brain-box?”