know what to say, or how to
comfort him.

"Now mind, lad, thou com'st to me if thy cousins are o'er hard upon
thee. Let me hear if they misuse thee, and I'll give it them."

Tom shrunk from the idea that this gave him of the cousins, whose
companionship he had, until then, been looking forward to as a pleasure.
He was not reassured when, after threading several streets and by-ways,
they came into a court of dingy-looking houses, and his uncle opened the
door of one, from which the noise of loud, if not angry voices was
heard.

A tall large woman was whirling one child out of her way with a rough
movement of her arm; while she was scolding a boy a little older than
Tom, who stood listening sullenly to her angry words.

"I'll tell father of thee, I will," said she; and turning to uncle John,
she began to pour out her complaints against Jack, without taking any
notice of little Tom, who clung to his uncle's hand as to a protector in
the scene of violence into which he had entered.

"Well, well, wife!--I'll leather Jack the next time I catch him letting
the water out of the pipe; but now get this lad and me some tea, for
we're weary and tired."

His aunt seemed to wish Jack might be leathered now, and to be angry
with her husband for not revenging her injuries; for an injury it was
that the boy had done her in letting the water all run off, and that on
the very eve of the washing day. The mother grumbled as she left off
mopping the wet floor, and went to the fire to stir it up ready for the
kettle, without a word of greeting to her little nephew, or of welcome
to her husband. On the contrary, she complained of the trouble of getting
tea ready afresh, just when she had put slack on the fire, and had no
water in the house to fill the kettle with. Her husband grew angry, and
Tom was frightened to hear his uncle speaking sharply.

"If I can't have a cup of tea in my own house without all this ado, I'll
go to the Spread Eagle, and take Tom with me. They've a bright fire
there at all times, choose how they manage it; and no scolding wives.
Come, Tom, let's be off."

Jack had been trying to scrape acquaintance with his cousin by winks and
grimaces behind his mother's back, and now made a sign of drinking out
of an imaginary glass. But Tom clung to his uncle, and softly pulled him
down again on his chair, from which he had risen to go to the
public-house.

"If you please, ma'am," said he, sadly frightened of his aunt, "I