She hesitated a moment. “’Tis a hard thing for a woman to say. . . .  But maybe ‘tis turnin’ out you are?” she suggested brightly.  “Turnin’ out?”

“That would simplify things, o’ course.  And everybody knowin’ that Pamphlett’s served you with a notice to quit—­”

But thereupon Nicky-Nan exploded.  “Served me with a notice, did he?  Pamphlett! . . .  Well, yes he did, if you want to know.  But never you fret:  I’m upsides with Pamphlett.  This is my house, ma’am:  an’ here I bide till it pleases me to quit.”

“O-oh!” sighed 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