“I’ll not be insulted in your spot nor nobody else’s,” he stormed at Will; “nay, and I’ll not take telling from yon wastrel you call brother, neither! All on us know what a bonny mess o’ things he’s made at Sandholes. All on us know it’ll be right fain to see his back. … As for you, you gomeless half-thick,” he added, swinging round so suddenly on the smug cousin that he was left gaping, “you can just shut yon calf’s head o’ yours and mighty sharp or I’ll shut it for you! Them as knows nowt’d do best to say nowt, and look as lile like gawping jackasses as Nature’ll let ’em!” … He sent a final glare round the stifled table, and let Eliza have the sting in his tail. “I’d been looking to be real friendly wi’ Blindbeck,” he finished nastily, “and my lad an’ all, but I don’t know as we’ll either on us be fain for it after this. Nay, I wain’t set down agen, missis, and that’s flat, so you needn’t ax me! I’m off home and glad to be going, and no thanks to none o’ you for nowt!”
He glanced at his plate to make certain there was nothing left, snatched at his cup and hastily swallowed the dregs; then, thrusting his chair backward so violently that it fell to the floor, he clapped his hat on his head and marched rudely out. Eliza, catching a glance from a tearful daughter, got to her feet, too. They swam from the room in a torrent of loud apologies and bitter, snarled replies.
Will leaned back in his chair with a fretted expression on his gentle face. The cousin, slowly turning from red to mottled mauve, observed to Mary Phyllis that the old man’s language was “really remarkably like my chief’s!” Some of the younger end started to giggle afresh, but Sarah was still trembling from the unexpected shock, and Simon felt gloomy again after his public effort. He could see that he had upset Will, and that was the last thing he wanted to do, today. Will did not like Battersby, but he liked peace, and there were other reasons for friendly relations at present. Will’s youngest daughter had a direct interest in Battersby’s lad and his hopes of a farm, and now the father had shaken the Blindbeck dust from his proud feet. She looked across at the cause of the trouble with tear-filled, indignant eyes.
“Seems to me things is always wrong when you come to Blindbeck, Uncle Simon!” she exclaimed hotly. “Nobody wants your old farm, I’m sure! I wouldn’t have it at a gift! But you might have spoken him fair about it, all the same. I never see such folks as you and Aunt Sarah for setting other folk by the ears!”
Will said “Whisht, lass, whisht!” in as cross a tone as he ever used to his girls, and Simon glowered at her sulkily, but he did not speak. She was a fair, pretty thing, with Geordie-an’-Jim’s eyes, and he did not wish to injure her happiness in any way. It was true enough, as she said, that there was generally something in the shape of a row as soon as he and Sarah set foot in the house, but he could not tell for the life of him how it came about. It could not be altogether their fault, he thought resentfully, yet with a sort of despair. Today, for instance, he had every reason for keeping the peace, and yet that fool of a Battersby must come jumping down his throat! Nobody could be expected to stand such manners and such nasty greed—grabbing a man’s homestead before his notice was well in! There was nothing surprising, of course, in the fact that the women had already come to blows. He had expected it from the start, and, with the resignation of custom, thought it as well over soon as late. They had had one scrap, as it was, from what Sarah had said, and the dregs of that pot of passion would still be hot enough to stir.
“It’s a shame, that’s what it is!” the girl was saying, over and over again. Tears dropped from the Geordie-an’-Jim eyes, and Simon felt furious with everybody, but particularly with himself.
“You needn’t bother yourself,” he growled across at last, making a rough attempt to put the trouble right. “Young Battersby’s over much sense to go taking a spot like ourn, and as for his dad, he’ll be back afore you can speak. ’Tisn’t Sam Battersby, I’ll be bound, if he isn’t as pleased as punch to be running in double harness wi’ Blindbeck and its brass!”
“Ay, like other folk!” Eliza dropped on him from the clouds, reappearing panting from her chase. “Like other folk a deal nearer home, Simon Thornthet, as you don’t need telling! Battersby wanted nowt wi’ the farm—he tellt me so outside. ’Tisn’t good enough for the likes of him, nor for our Emily Marion, neither! He was that stamping mad he was for breaking it all off, but I got him promised to look in again next week. I’d a deal o’ work wi’ him, all the same,” she added, flushing angrily at her brother-in-law’s ironic smile, “and no thanks to you, neither, if I come out top, after all! Anyway, I’ll thank you to speak folk civilly at my table, if you can, whatever-like hired man’s ways you keep for your own!”
She would have hectored him longer if Will had not got to his feet and taken himself and his brother out of
