Mistress Pullen shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe you like the lass yourself,” she sneered, and then added fiercely, “anyway, you ought to be ashamed of yourself letting a witch’s brat stay in the room with your own children. Out of the house with him, you loony.”
Joe looked at the forlorn little boy and then at his wife.
“Maybe I better go with the child,” he suggested casually.
Mistress Pullen turned on him, withering contempt in her glance.
“Ay,” she said, “maybe you had. Lord, what an unnatural beast you are, preferring to go to a rum-shop in the company of a bastard brat than to rest in peace at your own fireside. Oh, go by all means, and the devil with you. You fool, do you think Nan Swayle has forgiven the ducking you gave her at the Restoring of the King?”
And with this parting shaft, Mistress Pullen, baby on arm, strode across the kitchen and climbed up the wide ladder to the rooms above.
Joe looked about him undecidedly. Then his glance fell on the boy.
“Who’s Win?” he asked, suddenly remembering his question of a minute or two before.
The little boy began to cry again and opening his kirtle-cloak disclosed to the fisherman’s astounded eyes a little black kitten nearly dead with fright and drenched with rain.