“Ay,” says she, “but poachers’ wives have need of meat and physic as well as other men’s.”
“I don’t chide you for that, cousin,” says I, “but for your coming here alone. ’Tis commonly known that Jobson is a rude and dangerous fellow, and much given to strong liquors, and I would not have you fall in with him when he is in his cups. Sure Miles should have been with you, with a lantern and a cudgel.”
“He was ready to come,” said she, “but I preferred to be alone, and so bid him go back.”
“Would Mrs Skipwith approve of this, cousin?” I asked.
“I never asked her,” says Dorothy. “I an’t a small child, Cousin Ned, to be bid where to go, and chid for all I do.”
“No, indeed,” says I. “I can well remember, Doll, the time when Mrs Skipwith was governess to you, but now you do seem to me to govern her.”
She laughed, yet not all pleasantly. “I am well ruled, none the less,” said she.
“And it seems to me that it an’t unneeded,” says I. “See you here, cousin, if you find it irksome to be without any fellow[136] save Mrs Skipwith, I will endeavour to seek out some young damsel of agreeable conditions that shall bear you company, and assist you to divert yourself; but since you are in my house, I must beg that you won’t walk abroad unless attended suitably to your quality. Sure you must perceive that this is only right.”
But Dorothy snatched her hand from mine, and walked on with her head held high, as she had done when we had last passed through this wood together.
“ ’Tis very courteously done in you, to remind me of my situation as a dependent in your house, cousin,” she cried, and stopped as though too angry to continue.