being-gutted cottage.

The agent was standing by Tryst's bed, keeping up a stream of comment
to two of his men, who were taking that aged bed to pieces. It was his
habit to feel less when he talked more; but no one could have fallen
into a more perfect taciturnity than he when he saw Kirsteen coming up
those narrow stairs. In so small a space as this room, where his
head nearly touched the ceiling, was it fair to be confronted by that
lady--he put it to his wife that same evening--"Was it fair?" He
had seen a mother wild duck look like that when you took away its
young--snaky fierce about the neck, and its dark eye! He had seen
a mare, going to bite, look not half so vicious! "There she stood,
and--let me have it?--not a bit! Too much the lady for that, you
know!--Just looked at me, and said very quiet: 'Ah! Mr. Simmons, and
are you really doing this?' and put her hand on that little girl of
his. 'Orders are orders, ma'am!' What could I say? 'Ah!' she said, 'yes,
orders are orders, but they needn't be obeyed.' 'As to that, ma'am,' I
said--mind you, she's a lady; you can't help feeling that 'I'm a
working man, the same as Tryst here; got to earn my living.' 'So have
slave-drivers, Mr. Simmons.' 'Every profession,' I said, 'has got its
dirty jobs, ma'am. And that's a fact.' 'And will have,' she said,
'so long as professional men consent to do the dirty work of their
employers.' 'And where should I be, I should like to know,' I said, 'if
I went on that lay? I've got to take the rough with the smooth.' 'Well,'
she said, 'Mr. Freeland and I will take Tryst and the little ones in at
present.' Good-hearted people, do a lot for the laborers, in their way.
All the same, she's a bit of a vixen. Picture of a woman, too, standin'
there; shows blood, mind you! Once said, all over--no nagging. She took
the little girl off with her. And pretty small I felt, knowing I'd
got to finish that job, and the folk outside gettin' nastier all the
time--not sayin' much, of course, but lookin' a lot!" The agent paused
in his recital and gazed fixedly at a bluebottle crawling up the
windowpane. Stretching out his thumb and finger, he nipped it suddenly
and threw it in the grate. "Blest if that fellow himself didn't turn up
just as I was finishing. I was sorry for the man, you know. There was
his home turned out-o'-doors. Big man, too! 'You blanky-blank!' he says;
'if I'd been here you shouldn't ha' done this!' Thought he was goin' to
hit me. 'Come