"Ducks and green peas!" repeated she. "I s'pose you don't reckon on eating that every day here, no, nor on Sundays, no, not even at Christmas. 'Taint such as we in the Punch-Bowl as can stuff ourselves on ducks and green peas. Green peas and ducks we may grow—but we sells 'em to the quality."
After some consideration Mrs. Rocliffe relented sufficiently to say, "I don't know but what Samuel may be idlin'; he mostly is. I'll go and send my son Samuel to help you with the box."
Then with a surly "Good-night" the woman withdrew.
After a couple of minutes, she returned: "I've come back," she said, "to tell you that if old Clutch is off his meat—and I shouldn't wonder if he was—wi' neglect and wi' drawing such a weight—then you'd best set to work and make him gruel. Jonas can't afford to lose old Clutch, just becos he's got a wife." Then she departed again.
Jonas was indeed in the stable attending to the horse. He had, moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her hand was so unsteady that she extinguished the light. Where to find the tinder box she knew not. She felt for a bench, and in the darkness when she had reached it, sank on it, and burst into tears.
Such was the welcome to her new home.
For some time she sat with as little light in her heart as there was without.
She felt some relief in giving way to her surcharged heart. She sobbed and knitted her fingers together, unknitted them, and wove them together again in convulsions of distress—of despair.
What expectation of happiness had she here? She was accustomed at the Ship to have everything about her neat and in good order. The mere look round that she had given to the room, the principal room of the house she had entered, showed how ramshackle it was. To some minds it is essential that there should be propriety, as essential as that the food they consume should be wholesome, the water they drink should be pure. They can no more accommodate themselves to disorder than they can to running on hands and feet like apes.
It was quite true that this house would be given up to Mehetabel to do with it what she liked. But would her husband care to have it other than it was? Would he not resent her attempts to alter everything?