“Highty tighty!” said Mrs Hogg. “I can’t have any more of this. Out you go. Did you see her?”
“Oh, don’t ask me. She’s a perfect terror!”
“She has a sharp bark, but what I say is that her bark’s worse nor her bite. She pays regular. Now, why couldn’t you bring yourself to mind her and to soothe her down a bit? Maybe she’d do well by you.”
“She wouldn’t have me on any terms. She turned me right out. She didn’t like me at all.”
“I’m not surprised at that. I don’t much like von, either. But there’s your dinner in the corner there. I wropt it up in a bit o’ paper. You’d best take it out and eat it in the fields. It’ll be all mess and moither and soapsuds and steaming water here for the rest of the day.”
“And when may I come back again?”
“I don’t want you back at all.”
“But I suppose you won’t turn me out?”
“No, you may share my bed. You behaved better last night. Come back when you can’t bear yourself any longer, and if you can buy yourself a draught of milk and a hunch of bread for supper it would give less trouble getting anything ready. The boys’ll have cold porridge to-night, without any milk, and that’s all I can give you. I can never be bothered with cooking on a washing day.”
Nesta took up her dinner, which was wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper, and disappeared. She walked far, far until she was tired. Then she sat down and opened the little parcel. Within was the rind of a very hard cheese and a lump of very stale bread. But Nesta’s hunger was now so strong that she ate up the bread and devoured the cheese and felt better afterwards.