she would knock her mop against the legs of the furniture, and slop dirty water in all directions.
"Phœbe!" Fawnie would cry, "I'll have Mr. Vale throw you into the street if you ain't respecful."
"The street, indeed! I'd shouldn't have far to seek for a better situation than this. I've a cousin in Australier that would pay my passage out to-morrow if I crooked my finger. I'm more than a bit tired of Canader as it is. If it weren't for baby. . . ."
Sometimes they were amicable and made huge pots of jam which almost always boiled over or burned. The baby was given sticky spoons to lick.
One noonday Phœbe bounded in radiant. Vale had come in to dinner, but it was not ready.
"I've been talkin' over the fence to Bob Gunn," she announced breathlessly. "He's leaving Chard's today. Him and Mr. Chard had a row. The gulls has et all his fish and he's blamed Bob for it. 'I heard them mewling and] whimpering at daybreak this morning. There's been a terrible to-do. Ho! ho! I'd ha' given a month's wage to see Mr. Chard's face." She danced a few roystering steps in her red woolen slippers.
"Whatever is she talking about?" Derek turned to Hugh.
Hugh was smiling broadly. "It happened like this, sir. Mr. Chaird had bought a catch of some wee fish that's no much guid from the Mistwell fishermen. They ca' them moon-eyes, I think. He'd got a waggon load to use as fertilizer on his strawberry beds. Bob put the horses away and left the waggon standin' by the beds, ready to begin spreading this morn. When daylight came a gull spied the lot and flew off to tell his friends. The whole flock came. I haird them makin' a great noise mysel' when my head was still under the blanket. Every gull grabbed a fish and then anither. Ye can picture how they'd circle and swoop.
