"I didn't expect to be drove into the divorce court at the point of a pistol, but that's how it ended, and you was free to torment Miss Lamotte, poor young thing! Don't you let yourself think that I envied her! Lord knows I had had enough of you, and your meanness, but I pitied her; and if I had knocked out your brains, as I've been tempted to do a dozen times, when you have rolled in here blind drunk, I'd have done her a good turn, and myself too. The time was when Nance Fergus was your equal, and more too; but you left England with the notion that here you would be the equal of anybody, and you've never got clear of the idea. I've tried to make you understand that there's a coarse breed of folks, same's there is of dogs, and that you are of a mighty coarse breed. I've lived out with gentle folks over the water, and they were none of your sort. But, go on John Burrill, the low women you are so fond of, and the girls at the factory, have called you good lookin', until your head is turned with vanity. You have got yourself in among the upper class, no matter how, and I suppose you expect your good looks to do the rest for you. I mind once when I was at service in Herefordshire, the Squire had a fine young beast in his cattle yard, black an' sleek, an' handsome to look at, and the young ladies came down from the big house and looked at it through the fence, and called it a 'beautiful creature,' but all the same they led it away to the slaughter house with a ring in its nose, and the young ladies dined off it with a relish."
John Burrill stroked his nasal organ fondly, as if discerning some connection between that protuberance and the aforementioned ring; but he made no attempt to interrupt her.
"You was bad enough in England, John Burrill; what with your poaching and your other misdeeds, and sorry was the day when I left a good place to come away from the country with you, because it was gettin' too hot for you to stay there. You couldn't get along without me then; and you can't get along now it seems, for all your fine feathers, without you come here sometimes to brag of your exploits, and pretend you are lookin' after the boy."
"Nance," said Burrill, "you're a fine old bird! 'Ow I'd like to set you at my old father-in-law, blarst him, when he rides it too rough sometimes, and, what a sociable little discourse you could lay down for the ladies too, Nance; but, are you about done? You've been clean over the old ground, seems to me, tho' I may have dozed a little here and there. Have you been over the old business, and brought me over the water, by the nape of the neck; because, if you haven't—no, I see you have not, so here's to you, Nance, spin on;" and he took from his pocket a black bottle, and drank a mighty draught therefrom.
"No, I'm not done," screamed the woman. "You've come here to-night, as you have before, for a purpose; one would think that such a fine gentleman could find better society, but it seems you can't. You never come here for nothing; you never come for any good; you want something? What is it?"
He laughed a low, hard laugh.
"Yes," he said, taking another pull at the black bottle; "I want something."
"Umph! I thought so."
"I want to tell you," here he arose, and dropping his careless manner, laid a threatening hand upon her arm. "I want to tell you, Nance Burrill, that you have got to bridle that tongue of yours; d'ye understand?"
She shook off his hand, and retired a few paces eyeing him closely as she said: