'd got Jerrem with her."

"S'pose if I have?" said Poll, with whom Adam was no favorite: "they
doesn't want you. You stay where you be now. I hates to see anybody
a-spilin' sport like that."

With no very pleasant remark on the old woman Adam turned to go on.

"Awh, you may rin," she cried, "but you woan't catch up they. They was
bound for Nolan Point, and they's past there long afore now."

Then the two he had seen were they! An indescribable feeling of
jealousy stung Adam, and, giving way to his temper in a volley of oaths
against old Poll, he turned back, repassed her and went toward home,
while she stood enjoying his discomfiture, laughing heartily at it as
she called out, "I hears 'ee. Swear away! I don't mind yer cusses, not
I. Better hear they than be deef."

CHAPTER XXIX.

"Joan, you needn't expect me till you see me"--Joan turned quickly
round to see Adam at the door, looking angry and determined--"and you
can tell Eve from me that as it seems all one to her whatever companion
she has, I don't see any need for forcing myself where I am told I
should only be one in the way."

"Adam--" But the door was already slammed, and Joan again left in
possession of the kitchen.--"Now, there 'tis," she said in a tone of
vexation, "just as I thought: a reg'lar piece o' work made all out o'
nothin'. Drabbit the maid! If her's got the man her wants, why can't
her study un a bit? But somehow there's bin a crooked stick lyin' in
her path all day to-day: her's nipped about somethin', I'm positive
sure o' that; and they all just come home too, and everythin', and now
to be at daggers--drawn with one 'nother! 'Tis terrible, 'tis."

Joan's reflections, interrupted by the necessary attention which her
cakes and pasties made upon her, lasted over some considerable time,
and they had not yet come to an end when two of the principal objects
of them presented themselves before her. "Why, wherever have 'ee bin
to?" she said peevishly. "Whatever made 'ee stay away like this
for--actin' so foolish, when you knaws, both of 'ee, what a poor temper
Adam's got if anythin' goes contrary with un?"

Jerrem shrugged his shoulders, while Eve, at once assuming an injured
air for such an unmerited attack, said, "Really, Joan, I don't know
what you mean. Old Poll Potter has just been telling us that Adam came
flying and fuming up her way, wanting to know if she'd seen us, and
then, when she said where we'd gone to, he used the most dr