Even in the midst of some rising troubles of his own he found the energy to buttonhole Reuben again, and torment him afresh on the subject of a trade for the lad.
Reuben, flushed and tremulous, went straight from the minister to his wife--with the impetus of Mr.Ancrum's shove, as it were, fresh upon him.

Sitting opposite to her in the back kitchen, while she peeled her potatoes with a fierce competence and energy which made his heart sick within him, Reuben told her, with incoherent repetitions of every phrase, that in his opinion the time had come when Mr.Gurney should be written to, and some of Sandy's savings applied to the starting of Sandy's son in the world.
There was an ominous silence.

Hannah's knife flashed, and the potato-peelings fell with a rapidity which fairly paralysed Reuben.
In his nervousness, he let fall the name of Mr.Ancrum.Then Hannah broke out.

'_Some_ foo',' she knew, had been meddling, and she might have guessed that fool was Mr.Ancrum.Instead of defending her own position, she fell upon Reuben and his supporter with a rhetoric whereof the moral flavour was positively astounding.
Standing with the potato-bowl on one hip and a hand holding the knife on the other, she delivered her views as to David's laziness, temper, and general good-for-nothingness.

If Reuben chose to incur the risks of throwing such a young lout into town-wickedness, with no one to look after him, let him; she'd be glad enough to be shut on him.