He tore open the kitchen door, and asked them furiously how much longer they were going to keep him waiting.
But now his mouth grew as wide open as the door-way he stood in, and his face quite lit up with satisfaction.
Round about the walls, and in the warmth of the chimney corner, hung his sou'wester, and his oil-skin jacket, and his trousers, and every blessed bit of clothes he was to put on, as dry as tinder. And in the middle of the kitchen bench he saw his large sea-boots standing there, so snug, and so nicely greased, that the grease ran right down the shafts and over the straps.
Such a servant for looking after him and taking care of him he had not believed it possible to get for love or money, cried the general dealer.
But now his wife could contain herself no longer. She showed him that the clothes were both scorched and burned, and that the whole of one side of the oilskin jacket was crumpled up with heat, and cracked if one pulled it never so lightly.
And in she dragged the big butter-keg, that he might see for himself how the wench had stuck both his boots in it and used it to grease them with.
But the general dealer stood there quite dumfoundered, and glanced now at the boots and now at the butter-tub.
He snapped his fingers, and his face twitched, and then he began to wipe away his tears.
He hastened to go in that they might not see that he was weeping.
"Mother does not know how kindly the wench has meant it all," he sobbed. Good heavens! what if she had used butter for his boots, if she had only meant well. Never would he turn such a lass out of the house.