'If you will encourage vagrants, get rid of 'em, and don't bother me.

I'll tell you what it is, Mrs Prothero, if all of 'em are not off the farm before I'm up, I'll give 'em such a bit of my mind as 'll keep 'em away for the future; see if I don't.' Mrs Prothero saw that her husband was redder in the face than usual, and she had a very great dread of putting him in a passion; still she ventured one word more very meekly.
'But the girl, David ?' 'What's the girl to you or me! we've a girl of our own, and half-a-dozen servant girls.

We don't want any more.

Send her to the Union.' 'How can we send her ?' 'Let the rascally Irish manage that, 'tis no affair of mine; but if you bother me any more, I vow I'll take a whip and drive 'em, girl and all, off the premises.' 'Very well, David,' said Mrs Prothero, submissively, and with a heavy sigh: 'but if the girl should die ?' She walked across to the door, paused on the threshold, and glanced back; but there was no change in the rubicund face.

She went into the passage, and slowly closed the door, holding the handle in her hand for a few seconds as she did so.