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Cloam had long been ambitious to have a voice in the selection of her raw material. If anything was good, who got the credit? Mr. Swipes, immediately. But if everything was bad, as more often happened, who received the blame? Mary Knuckledown.
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.
Cloam, the housekeeper, who had all the keys at her girdle, about ten o'clock on the Monday morning, "what a day we did have yesterday!" "A mercy upon me, Mr. Swipes," cried Mrs. Cloam, who was also short of breath, "how you did exaggerate my poor narves, a-rushing up so soft, with the cold steel in both your hands!"
Dine with us you shall this day, if we have to dine two hours earlier, and though Mother Cloam rage furiously. How much longer do you suppose you can carry on at this pace? Look at me. I have double your bodily substance; but if I went on as you do you remember the twenty-four-pounder old Hotcoppers put into the launch, and fired it, in spite of all I could say to him? Well, you are just the same.
"Ah! ma'am, it have right to be a good deal wuss than that," the chivalrous Swipes made answer, with the scythe beside his ear. "It don't consarn what the masters say, though enough to take one's legs off. But the ladies, Mrs. Cloam, the ladies it's them as takes our heads off." "Go 'long with you, Mr. Swipes! You are so disastrous at turning things.
He cleared his throat and began: "'Sale this day to Newtake Farm, near Chagford, Dartmoor, Devonshire. Mr. William Blanchard, being about to leave England for foreign parts, desires to sell at auction his farm property, household goods, cloam, and effects, etc., etc., as per items below, to the best bidder. Many things so good as new. How do 'e like that, Phoebe?"
Vassilissa, who was accustomed to this silent gathering of the forces before her mother broke into specially impassioned speech, began calmly to untie her pinafore. "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.
'You see, 'tis this way: ever since that burglary there's no resting for the women. My poor back is blue all over with the cloam my missus takes to bed. And ha'f a dozen times a night 'tis, 'Arch'laus, I'm sartin I hear some person movin' Arch'laus, fit an' take a light and have a look downstairs, that's a dear! An' these fellows'll tell 'ee 'tis every bit so bad with they.
Ah, you women are hard-hearted to one another, when your minds are up! But take my word for it, Mrs. Cloam, no one will ever have the chance of making your beautiful Miss Dolly cry by asking her where her sweetheart is." "My dear girls, all your courage is gone," said Admiral Darling to his daughters at luncheon, that same Monday; "departed perhaps with Lord Nelson and Frank.
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