“That’s right!” cried Annie, with sudden vigour; “go off and make yourself fine, and lave me to wash all the cloam that’s been standen’ up in grease these three days.  Vanities o’ the flesh are all you think on, ‘stead of helpen’ your mother as has done everything for ’ee since you was naught but a young babe, and that scrawlen’ come night there was no gettin’ any sleep.  You might not be a maid toall for the help I get of ’ee.”

“I’ll help wi’ the cloam,” said a big, heavily-made boy who was seated at one end of the table, eating a pasty.  He crammed the last pale, stodgy morsel into his mouth and pushed back his chair, saying: 

“I’ll do the cloam for ’ee, mother.  Lave the maiden be.”

John-James was a good-natured, thick-headed boy, the third in the family, and the one of her children who seemed to have inherited Annie’s peasant blood undiluted.  He supplied the restful element in a house where the eldest-born was hot-tempered and revengeful and the second son more like a girl-child for sharpness and a woman grown for scheming.  Tom had already made up his mind to be Mr. Tonkin’s office boy, and from that he meant to become articled clerk, and from that—­who could tell?  Tom remained quiet on the subject of his ultimate intentions, but he was fighting his mother’s apathy and natural habit of opposition to attain the first step in his career.  Mr. Tonkin, who, as Ishmael’s guardian, visited fairly frequently at the Manor, was expected to the supper that night, and Tom meant matters to come to a head.  He had noticed what an influence the Methodist lawyer had over his mother and meant to use it for his own ends.  Annie had a secret fear of Tom; Archelaus she adored, and Vassilissa came only second; but John-James she held of small account.  She turned on him now even while she gave the dish into his hands.

“There you go, John-James Beggoe, talken’ as though I grudged my own cheild maken’ herself ‘ansome.  Vassie, my worm, you may have that bit o’ blue ribbon I bought last Corpus Fair—­’tes in the chest.”

Vassie was off before her mother had time to change her mind, and John-James began slowly to rinse the china through the darkened water, on whose surface the grease lay in a shimmering arabesque.  Annie went round the kitchen rasping the chairs over the stone floor and making futile dabs at their seats with her apron.  She had that curious uncertainty of aim usually seen in dogs, who never seem to be sure of touching the object at which they paw.

The head and shoulders of Archelaus, furze-laden, passed the window, apparently floating through the luminous warmth of afternoon that filled the courtyard as through the depths of the sea.  The illusion was shattered when he kicked the door open and, striding in, flung his burden on to the dying fire.  The sudden glow that leapt up revealed Tom ensconced in the settle, cleaning his boots with a pat of butter stolen from the dairy.  He continued his occupation quite unmoved by the fulminations of his mother, bending his ruddy head over the boots.  Tom was the “red-headed Dane” who crops up generation after generation in some Cornish families.