Mrs Penhaligon dejectedly, "then it puts me in a very
awkward position, if you don't mind my sayin' so."

"How is it awkward, ma'am?" asked Nicky-Nan, rubbing his unshaven
chin with the point of the trowel.

"Well, Mr Nanjivell, I dare say you meant it well enough. But I have
my reputation to think about; an' the children, God bless 'em!
I grant that Polsue body to be a provokin' woman. She 'ave a way
with her that drives me mad as a sheep. But, if you don't mind me
tellin' 'ee, you men have no sense--not a mother's son of 'ee. Not a
doubt my Sam'd ha' spoke up just as fierce as you did. But then, you
see, he's my Sam."

"Very like 'tis my dulness, ma'am," said Nicky-Nan, still delicately
scraping his jaw-bristles with the trowel; "but I don't catch your
drift, even now."

"Then I'll speak plainer. Where was the sense to blurt out afore a
lot o' naybours as _you_'d see I didn' come to want? Be I the kind
o' woman to take any help but my own man's?--even if you had it to
give, which 'tis well be-known as you haven't."

"Oh, damn!" He swore as if a wasp had stung him: and indeed he had
jabbed the point of the trowel into his jaw. After a pause he added,
"The naybours know--do they?--as I couldn' act up to what I promised
that woman, not if I tried. Very well, then. Where's the harm done?
. . . I cleared her out, anyway."

Mrs Penhaligon eyed him with pity for a moment. "Yes," she sighed,
"that's just the plumb-silly way my Sam would talk: and often enough
he've a-driven me just wild with it. Men be all of one mould. . . .
Mr Nanjivell, you've no great experience o' women. But did 'ee ever
know a woman druv to the strikes[1] by another woman? An' did 'ee
ever know a woman, not gone in the strikes, that didn' keep some wit
at the back of her temper? . . . _I_ was dealin' with Mrs Polsue,
don't you make any mistake."

"It struck me that she had been distressin' you, an' you'd be glad to
get the rids of her."

"So I _was_ in distress. But I had th' upper hand, 'specially wi'
those women hearkenin' and every one hatin' her. . . . What must
happen, but forth you steps with a 'Leave this to me. _I_'ll look
after Mrs Penhaligon. _I_'ll see _she_ don't come to want'--all as
bold as a fire-hose. '_I_'ll clear 'ee out o' this house, which is
_our_ house,' says you--or to that effect. I wasn' so mad but, when
I heard 'ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe's face.
Oh yes! I know what you'll be sa