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For at this moment the three Penhaligon children broke in at the porch, burst past Mrs Climoe, and clung to their mother, clamouring for dinner. In the hubbub Nicky-Nan meanly slipped back to his den, closed the door, and dragged two chairs against it. Then he took a worn tea-tray and propped it against the window, blocking the broken panes.
"There's another, unless I disremember," snapped Mrs Climoe, "that forbids 'ee to covet your naybour's wife." While Mr Hambly sought for a gentle reproof for this, Mrs Penhaligon, pale of face, rested a hand against her gate-post, and said she very gently but in a white scorn "What is this talk of naybours, quarrelin' or comfortin' or succourin' or bearin' witness?
But he must defend himself: for Mrs Climoe never promised anything which if it happened to be unpleasant she did not punctually perform. With swift cunning he snatched up his parcel of staples and screws, caught at a poker, and made a leap for the door. Here luck aided him. Mrs Penhaligon had finished her scrubbing and carried her pail out to the porch.
Or is it witchcraft you'd be layin' on us? . . . Take up your gold, however you came by it, an' fetch your shadow off my doorstep, or I'll " She advanced on poor Nicky-Nan, who backed out to the side gate and into the lane before her wrath, and found himself of a sudden taken on both flanks: on the one by Mrs Climoe, who had spied upon his visit and found her malicious curiosity too much for her; on the other by gentle old Mr Hambly returning from a stroll along the cliffs.
There be naybours, an'" she pointed a finger at Mrs Climoe "there be livers-by. Now stroll along, the lot of 'ee, and annoy somebody else that lives unprotected!"
'Naybours'? Him accused by public talk for a German spy " "Hush, Mrs Climoe! Of all the Commandments, ma'am, the one most in lack of observance hereabouts, to my observation, is that which forbids bearing false witness against a neighbour. To a charitable mind that includes hasty witness."
The noise had attracted a group of women to the porchway; among them, Mrs Climoe "good at the war-cry," as Homer says of Diomede. They huddled forward, obscuring the light. Mrs Polsue, feeling the wall firm against her back, collected her dignity. "I wish all respectable people here," she appealed to Dr Mant, as he came hurrying up the passage, "to take note of this woman's language."
"Hullo! Tut tut what is this?" exclaimed Mr Hambly. "A neighbours' quarrel, and between folks I know to be so respectworthy? . . . Oh, come now come, good souls!" "A little nigher than naybours, Minister," put in Mrs Climoe. "That is if you had eyes an' ears in your head." Nicky-Nan swung about on her: but she rested a hand on either hip and was continuing. "'Naybours, you said, sir?
It belonged to Mrs Climoe, possibly the champion virago of Polpier, and a woman of her word a woman who never missed an opportunity to make trouble. Her allusion to wiping her arms before action he as swiftly understood. The window across the stream belonged to Mrs Climoe's wash-kitchen. Again he cursed the luck that had interposed Bank Holiday and adjourned the washing operations of Polpier.
"Oh!" interposed Mrs Climoe viciously, "if you two are colleaguin' already to hush something up, the affair lies between you, of course. It seems odd to me, Maria Penhaligon, an' your proper husband not two days gone to the wars.
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