"Here, where be goin' to?" called out a voice behind him.
Without stopping Adam turned his head. "Oh, Poll, is that you?" he said.
"Iss."
"Have ye seen Eve pass this way? I think she'd got Jerrem with her."
"S'pose if I have?" said Poll, with whom Adam was no favorite: "they doesn't want you. You stay where you be now. I hates to see anybody a-spilin' sport like that."
With no very pleasant remark on the old woman Adam turned to go on.
"Awh, you may rin," she cried, "but you woan't catch up they. They was bound for Nolan Point, and they's past there long afore now."
Then the two he had seen were they! An indescribable feeling of jealousy stung Adam, and, giving way to his temper in a volley of oaths against old Poll, he turned back, repassed her and went toward home, while she stood enjoying his discomfiture, laughing heartily at it as she called out, "I hears 'ee. Swear away! I don't mind yer cusses, not I. Better hear they than be deef."
CHAPTER XXIX.
"Joan, you needn't expect me till you see me"—Joan turned quickly round to see Adam at the door, looking angry and determined—"and you can tell Eve from me that as it seems all one to her whatever companion she has, I don't see any need for forcing myself where I am told I should only be one in the way."