She thought again of what Sally had said, and a deep, smouldering rage was in her at this that he had done to her—this torture to which, according to Sally, he had quite consciously condemned her.
Now that she knew him better, his daily acts of callousness tormented her. She would go. She was not wanted here. Sally had said so. There had been letters from her aunt, from Reddin's vicar, from the eldest Miss Clomber. In them all she was spoken of as the culprit for being at Undern. Well, she did not want to be at Undern. She would go.
'Well, Hazel, child, what's the matter?' asked Reddin, looking up from doing his quarterly accounts. 'Haven't you got a stocking to mend or a hair-ribbon to make?'
'A many and a many things be the matter.'
'Come here, and I'll see if I can put 'em right.'
'Harkee!' she said suddenly. 'It's like as if the jeath-pack was i' full cry down the wind.'
'Anyone would think you were off your head, Hazel. But come and tell me about the things that are the matter.'
'It's you as makes 'em the matter.'
'Oh, well, sulk as long as you like.'
He returned angrily to his accounts. In the kitchen Vessons, very spondaic, was singing 'The Three Jolly Huntsmen.'