Chapter 3

he's used to take o' times I should ha' fancied un light-headed like."

"And so he'll be if you gives much sperrit to un, mother," said Joan anxiously: "'tis sure to stir his temper up. But there!" she added despondingly, "what can anybody do? 'Tis all they ha' got to fly to. There's Jerrem at it fro' mornin' to night; and as for uncle, dear sawl! he's as happy as a clam at high watter."

"Iss, I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker: "it don't never matter much what goes wrong, so long as uncle gets his fill o' drink. I've said scores o' times uncle's joy 'ud never run dry so long as liquor lasted."

"Awh, well," said Joan, "I don't knaw what us should ha' done if there'd ha' bin no drink to give 'em: they'd ha' bin more than Eve and me could manage, I can tell 'ee. Nobody but our ownselves, mother, will ever knaw what us two maidens have had to go through."

"You've often had my thoughts with 'ee, Joan," said Mrs. Tucker, her eyes dimmed by a rush of motherly sympathy for all the girls must have suffered; "and you can tell Eve (for her'll take it better from you than from me) that Adam's allays a-thinkin' of her, and begged and prayed that she wudn't forget un."

"No fear o' that," said Joan, anxious that her mother should depart; "and mind now you say, no matter what time 'tis, directly I'se seen Jonathan and knaws 'tis safe for we somebody shall bring un word to come back, for Eve and me's longin' to have a sight of un."

Charged with these messages, Mrs. Tucker hastened back to the mill, where all had gone well since her departure, and where she found Adam more tractable and reasonable than she had had reason to anticipate. He listened to all Joan's messages, agreed with her suspicions and seemed contented to abide by her decision. The plain, unvarnished statement which Mrs. Tucker gave of the misery and gloom spread over the place affected him visibly, and her account of the two girls, and the alteration she had seen in them, did not tend to dispel his emotion.

"As for Joan," she said, letting a tear escape and trickle down her cheek, "'tis heart-breakin' to look at her. Her's terrible wrapped up in you, Adam, is Joan--more than, as her mother, I cares for her to awn to, seein' how you'm situated with Eve."

"Oh, Eve never made no difference 'twixt us two," said Adam. Then, after a pause, he asked, "Didn't Eve give you no word to give to me?"

"Well, no," said Mrs. Tucker: then, with the determination to deal fairly, she added quickly, "but her was full o' questions about 'ee, and that 'fore I'd time to draw breath inside the place." Adam was silent, and Mrs. Tucker, considering the necessity for further explanation removed by the compromise she had made, continued: "You see, what with Jerrem and uncle, and the drink that goes on, they two poor maidens is kept pretty much on the go; and Eve, never bein' used to no such ways, seems terrible harried by it all."

"Harried?" repeated Adam, with ill-suppressed bitterness, "and well she may be; still, I should ha' thought she might have managed to send, if 'twas no more than a word, back to me."