“Theer! What do yo’ mak’ o’ thot?” cried Luke, restoring his watch to his fob, and stepping past her; “church clock can’t be wrong, can it?”
Jinny, unexpectedly confounded, fell to re-bolting the door again without speaking, and her lodger, triumphant in the consciousness of having had the last word, marched up to bed.
Luke was awake early on the following morning, yet, when he came downstairs to draw up a bucketful of water from the well, he found that his hostess must have been astir long before him. The kitchen had been scrubbed and sanded, a bright fire burnt on the hearth, and a most savoury smell of coffee and bacon greeted his nostrils. Moreover, Miss Whiteside, kneeling before the fire, was toasting a large round of bread.
“Yon smells gradely,” said Luke, pausing in the doorway.
Jinny glanced over her shoulder.
“It’s yo’,” she remarked. “I got yo’r breakfast in good time, knowing yo’ have to be on duty o’ mornin’s.”
“Coom,” said Kershaw with a gleeful swing of the bucket, “that’s reet. I call that proper thoughtful. I reckoned I’d happen have to tak’ a bite along wi’ me, seein’ it’s so early.”
“Nay,” responded Jinny graciously, as she scraped the burnt corner off the toast; “I’m for sendin’ a man off to his wark wi’ some heart in him—wi’out it’s too early for him to have a appetite. Poor John ’ull have to come back for his breakfast. I couldn’t expect the lad to be hungry at five o’clock i’ the mornin’, though I made him a nice cup o’ tea before he went, an’ I’ll do the same by yo’ next week when ’tis yo’r turn to be the early bird.”
“Well, yo’re something like a stirrin’ body—I’ll say that!” cried Luke approvingly; and he hurried out to the well, filled his bucket, and performed his ablutions, all with the least possible loss of time, for really the sights and smells in that comfortable kitchen made him feel most uncommonly hungry.
Jinny had finished toasting the second round by the time he appeared, and was covering the table with a coarse, clean, white cloth.