[_Joe suddenly gets up and goes to the door to see if it is fastened, and returns to face his friend. He takes off his long-sleeved waistcoat and throws it on a chair, after putting down his pipe._]
JOE. Don't you think it is too late even now?
MATTHEW. Fur what? It's no use speakin' i' riddles, man. Trust or no trust--that's my plan. Thee's the only livin' man or woman, for the matter of that, as I've blackened Jane Ann to, and if it'll ease thy mind to tell what's worritin' of thee, you do know it's as safe as if you'd dropt your secret into the mouth of a mine shaft.
JOE. Done! Give me a hearing and let's have finished with it.
[_Matthew cleans out the bowl of his pipe and knocks the ashes out against the grate as he waits for his friend to begin. Joe stands first on one leg and then on the other and gives a long whistle._]
MATTHEW. Sling along. It won't get no easier wi' keeping.
[_Joe wipes his forehead with a red handkerchief, which he takes out of his trouser pocket._]
JOE. Awkward kind o' work, pullin' your lawful wife to bits.
MATTHEW. It'll get easier as thee goes on, man. I'll help thee. What's the row to-day?
[_Matthew winks at Joe and lights his pipe again._]
MATTHEW. It's always some feeble thing like that as makes confusion in a house. Jane Ann began just like that. Dirty boots in the best parlor was my first offense, and it raised hell in our house for nigh on a whole day.
JOE. Well, I never! It was just the same thing in a way with me. I soaked the crusties in my tea this mornin' and threw 'em to the cat under the table, and I suppose I must 'ave put my foot in 'em, for Kezia went off like a thing gone mazy. She stormed and said--[_he sits down and wipes his forehead again with his handkerchief as he pauses_]--as she were a fool to take me, and all sorts, and then she cried fit to kill herself, and when I spoke she told me to hold my noise, and when I didn't speak she said I'd no feelin's, and was worse nor a stone. We scarcely spoke at dinner-time. She said she wished she was dead, and wanted her mother, and that, bein' a man, I was worse nor a devil; and when I kept on eatin' she said she wondered the food didn't choke me, and when I stopped eatin' she said I was never pleased wi' nothin' she'd got ready for me. My head is sore with the clang of the teasy things she drove into me, and I'm not good at replies, as you do know.