also milking the cows.

"Put that down!" said Gard, in a voice like the taps of a hammer.

"You get out--bravache! Bretteur! I'm master here."

"In six weeks--if you live that long. Until things are properly divided
you'll keep out of this, if you're well advised."

"I will, will I? We'll see about that, Mister Bully. I know what you're
up to, trying to fool our Nance with your foreign ways, and I won't have
it. She's not for the likes of you or any other man that's got a wife
and children over in England--"

This was the suddenly-thought-of burden of a discussion over the cups
one night at the canteen, soon after Gard's arrival, when the
possibility of his being a married man had been mooted and had remained
in Tom's turgid brain as a fact.

"By the Lord!" cried Gard, starting up in black fury, "if you can't
behave yourself I'll break every bone in your body."

And Nance's face, which had unconsciously stiffened at Tom's words,
glowed again at Gard's revelation of the natural man in him, and her
eyes shone with various emotions--doubts, hopes, fears, and a keen
interest in what would follow.

The first thing that followed was the dish of butter, which hurtled past
Gard's head and crashed into the face of the clock, and then fell with a
flop to the earthen floor.