She was very angry because Marriott, a gentleman-farmer from
Ambergate, called her the little pole-cat.
"Why, you're a pole-cat," he said to her.
"I'm not," she flashed.
"You are. That's just how a pole-cat goes."
She thought about it.
"Well, you're--you're----" she began.
"I'm what?"
She looked him up and down.
"You're a bow-leg man."
Which he was. There was a roar of laughter. They loved her
that she was indomitable.
"Ah," said Marriott. "Only a pole-cat says that."
"Well, I am a pole-cat," she flamed.
There was another roar of laughter from the men.
They loved to tease her.
"Well, me little maid," Braithwaite would say to her, "an'
how's th' lamb's wool?"
He gave a tug at a glistening, pale piece of her hair.
"It's not lamb's wool," said Anna, indignantly putting back
her offended lock.
"Why, what'st ca' it then?"
"It's hair."
"Hair! Wheriver dun they rear that sort?"
"Wheriver dun they?" she asked, in dialect, her curiosity
overcoming her.
Instead of answering he shouted with joy. It was the triumph,
to make her speak dialect.
She had one enemy, the man they called Nut-Nat, or Nat-Nut, a
cretin, with inturned feet, who came flap-lapping along,
shoulder jerking up at every step. This poor creature sold nuts
in the public-houses where he was known. He had no roof to his
mouth, and the men used to mock his speech.
The first time he came into the "George" when Anna was there,
she asked, after he had gone, her eyes very round: "Why does he do that when he walks?"
"'E canna 'elp 'isself, Duckie, it's th' make o' th'
fellow."
She thought about it, then she laughed nervously. And then
she bethought herself, her cheeks flushed, and she cried: "He's a horrid man."
"Nay, he's non horrid; he canna help it if he wor struck that
road."
But when poor Nat came wambling in again, she slid away. And
she would not eat his nuts, if the men bought them for her. And
when the farmers gambled at dominoes for them, she was
angry.
"They are dirty-man's nuts," she cried.
So a revulsion started against Nat, who had not long after to
go to the workhouse.
There grew in Brangwen's heart now a secret desire to make
her a lady. His brother Alfred, in Nottingham, had caused a
great scandal by becoming the lover of an educated woman, a
lady, widow of a doctor. Very often, Alfred Brangwen went down
as a friend to her cottage, which was in Derbyshire, leaving his
wife and family for a day or two, then returning to them. And
no-one dared gainsay him, for he was a strong-willed, direct
man, and he said he was a friend of this widow.
One day Brangwen met his brother on the station.