She greeted him effusively, and insisted on spreading the table afresh with meat and bread and cheese, talking incessantly and laughing loud and long as she did so, and Tom, knowing what it meant, wished he had gone before her return.
But being there and having come on purpose, in a moment's lull in her stream of talk, he told her about Pattie.
Her anger against Pattie was unbounded. She hugged Tom and called him "poor dear," till he pushed her away, and then she said she would pay the girl out. She would make her repent having used an honest fellow like that! She was going into Old Keston on Monday for a day's charring, and she knew well enough where Pattie lived. The garden of the house where she worked ran down to Pattie's garden, and she would give Pattie a bit of her mind.
"Then I hope you won't see her," said Tom. "I don't want any words. Words won't make her care for me, and that's all I wanted."
He turned to the door, but Jane intercepted him with the jug of supper beer.
"Have a glass, Tom, my lad! It'll comfort you and make you forget your troubles. There's a deal of comfort in a glass when you're low-spirited."
But the jug was struck from her hand and lay in twenty pieces on the floor, and the beer ran hurriedly over the boards and sank away between the crevices as if anxious to hide itself. "You dare to tempt me!" said Tom hoarsely.