“No, because she is dead and gone long ago, and my father married again, and brought a vixen, with two trollops of girls, to take the place of an angel.  These three women turned my stomach at all the sex.  Look, there’s a pretty woman for you!”

They had reached a clearing in the bush, consisting of a corn patch and a potato field, in which a woman, with a man’s hat on her head and a pair of top-boots upon her nether extremities, looking a veritable guy, was sprinkling the potato plants with well-diluted Paris green.  The shanty pertaining to the clearing was some little distance from the road, and, hoping to get a drink of water there, Coristine prepared to jump the rail fence and make his way towards it.  The woman, seeing what he was about, called:  ‘Hi, Jack, Jack!’ and immediately a big mongrel bull-dog came tearing towards the travellers, barking as he ran.

“Come back, Corry, for heaven’s sake, or he’ll bite you!” cried Wilkinson.

“Never a fear,” answered the lately sentimental botanist; “barking dogs don’t bite as a rule.”  So he jumped the fence in earnest, and said soothingly, as if he were an old friend:  “Hullo, Jack, good dog!” whereupon the perfidious Jack grovelled at his feet and then jumped up for a caress.  But the woman came striding along, picking up a grubbing hoe by the way to take the place of the treacherous defender of the house.

“Hi, git out o’ that, quick as yer legs’ll take yer; git out now! we don’t want no seeds, ner fruit trees, ner sewin’ machines, ner fambly Bibles.  My man’s jist down in the next patch, an’ if yer don’t git, I’ll set him on yer.”

“Madam,” said Coristine, lifting his hat, “permit me to explain—­”

“Go ‘long, I tell yer; that’s the way they all begin, with yer madam an’ explainin’; I’ll explain this hoe on yer if yer take another step.”

“We are not agents, nor tramps, nor tract distributors, nor collectors for missions,” cried Coristine, as soon as he had a chance to speak.  “My friend, here, is a gentleman engaged in education, and I am a lawyer, and all we want is a glass of water.”

“A liyer, eh?” said the Amazon, in a very much reduced tone; “Why didn’t yer say so at wonst, an’ not have me settin’ that good for nuthin’ brute on yer?  I never see liyers with a pack on their backs afore.  Ef yer wants a drink, why don’t yer both come on to the house?”

Wilkinson, at this not too cordial invitation, vaulted over the fence beside his companion, and they walked housewards, the woman striding on ahead, and the dog sniffing at Wilkinson’s heels in the rear.  A rather pretty red-haired girl of about fifteen was washing dishes, evidently in preparation for the mid-day meal.  Her the woman addressed as Anna Maria, and ordered her to go and get a pail of fresh water for the gentlemen.  But Wilkinson, who felt he must do something to restore his credit, offered to get the water if Anna Maria would show him the well or pump that contained it.  The girl gave him a tin pail, and he accompanied her to the back of the house, where the well and a bucket with a rope were.  In vain he tried to sink that bucket; it would not sink.  At last the girl took it out of his hands, turned the bucket upside down, and, letting it fall with a vicious splash, brought it up full of deliciously cool water, which she transferred to the pail.