‘Mind what you are about,’ said his mistress sternly, uplifting a warning fore-finger. ‘I will not put up with impertinence or disobedience.’
‘Saturday is the day,’ shouted Abel; and the shuffling movement became so violent and rapid that he actually seemed to dance.
‘This will never do,’ said Rosalie. ‘I see I must make a change at once. Abel Hunt, I give you notice to leave on Saturday week.’
‘One change be enough for me, Widow Fiander,’ retorted Abel, uplifting his voice as though his mistress stood a hundred yards away from him instead of barely two.
Rosalie’s lips quivered.
‘’T is your own fault,’ she cried passionately. ‘If you behave in this way I must make an example of you. Unless you do as I tell you, you must go!’
‘I’m danged if I do clean the pigs out afore Saturday,’ shrieked Abel; and he threw his hat upon the ground, waved his arms, and stamped about like a maniac. ‘I don’t want no danged women-folk to come a-orderin’ o’ me;’ and here Abel relieved his feelings by what Isaac Sharpe would delicately call ‘a bit o’ language.’
‘Clean your pigs yourself, Widow Fiander. One change be enough for me! Notice me so much as ever ye like, I’ll not clean them pigs out afore Saturday!’
Then came a little more ‘language,’ and so on da capo.
Never had such an experience fallen to Rosalie’s lot before; neither her kind old grandfather nor her doting husband had ever given her a rough word; while they lived her subordinates had invariably obeyed her orders with alacrity, and treated her personally with respect. The sound of Abel’s strident tones, the sight of his inflamed face, above all the words he used and the insolence of his manner, positively frightened her. She turned pale, trembled—then, making a valiant effort to stand her ground, threw out her hand as though to command silence; but, as Abel continued to dance and rave, sheer physical terror overcame her, and she suddenly turned and fled, her heart thumping violently against her ribs, the tears—never very far off during these first days of her bereavement—springing to her eyes.