As the rag now awaited him, Henry subsided.
“It’s a plot against me,” he said, “and I’ve no quarrel with you, Lydia. It ain’t your department. It’s they baggering women at the magnet, and they want for me to get the sack as I very well know. But they’ll get fired themselves—every trollop of ’em—afore I shall.”
“They don’t want you to get fired. Why should they? What have you done to them? Why, you haven’t even asked one of ’em to marry you,” said Lydia.
“No—they needn’t hope that,” he answered. “I’ve seen too much of woman since I came here ever to want one for my own.”
So the breeze subsided and Henry filled his empty boiler, growling himself back to his usual calm the while. It was characteristic of him that between these dynamic discharges, he preserved an amiable attitude to those among whom he worked, and when a storm had passed, he instantly resumed friendly relations.
Within an hour of this scene, when dinner time came, he descended to the ground floor and cautioned two girls who were skipping off down a flight of steps that led from the rag house to the ground below.
“Don’t you go so fast,” he said. “When slate steps are wet with rain, they’re beastly slippery, and some day one of you maidens will fall and break yourselves.”
Mrs. Trivett put on her old black bonnet, for she was going out to dinner with another woman; but as she prepared to depart, her son-in-law met her.
“It’s important,” he said. “I want half an hour with you, mother, and I dare say Mrs. Ford won’t mind if you go along with her to-morrow instead.”
Mrs. Ford made no difficulty and Lydia returned to the rag house with Ned, who brought his meal with him.
“I’ve got a tid-bit for you here,” he explained. “A bit of jugged hare which you’ll like. And I wouldn’t trouble you but for a very good reason.”
They sat in a corner among some rag bales, beyond earshot of others who were eating their meal in the rag house.
“She’s having dinner in the glazing room to-day. So I took the opportunity. It’s about her I want to talk. But eat first. I don’t want to spoil the jugged hare.”
He brought out a small pudding basin containing the delicacy and his mother-in-law ate heartily and declared the dish very good.
“Medora can cook, whatever she can’t do,” said Lydia.