He disengaged his boot and stood in his stocking feet.
“What is it?” he said, in an undertone to Bridget.
“No business of yours!” she answered, with a sudden hissing vehemence.
“I can do that better than you!” he answered, for once sure of his ground.
His wife darted at him a look of concentrated scorn.
“Get to bed!” she commanded him, declining to argue with such as he—and but for the twinkling eyes of Jerry, which looked sympathy, Boyd would have preferred to have joined the exiled Ephraim under the dark pent among the coom of the peat-house.
He looked to Jerry, but Jerry was sound asleep. So was Phil. So were all the others.
“Very well, däärlin’!” said Boyd Connoway to himself as his wife left the room. “But, sorrow am I for the man down there that she will not let me nurse. She’s a woman among a thousand, is Bridget Connoway. But the craitur will be after makin’ the poor man eat his poultices, and use his beef tay for outward application only!”