“Molly, I niver knew your equils—­to think o’ your poor mother as is a widow, an’ I took you wi’ as good as no character, an’ the times an’ times I’ve told you....”

Molly had not seen the lightning, and the thunder shook her nerves the more for the want of that preparation.  With a vague alarmed sense that she must somehow comport herself differently, she hastened her step a little towards the far deal table, where she might set down her cans—­caught her foot in her apron, which had become untied, and fell with a crash and a splash into a pool of beer; whereupon a tittering explosion from Marty and Tommy, and a serious “Ello!” from Mr. Poyser, who saw his draught of ale unpleasantly deferred.

“There you go!” resumed Mrs. Poyser, in a cutting tone, as she rose and went towards the cupboard while Molly began dolefully to pick up the fragments of pottery.  “It’s what I told you ’ud come, over and over again; and there’s your month’s wage gone, and more, to pay for that jug as I’ve had i’ the house this ten year, and nothing ever happened to’t before; but the crockery you’ve broke sin’ here in th’ house you’ve been ‘ud make a parson swear—­God forgi’ me for saying so—­an’ if it had been boiling wort out o’ the copper, it ‘ud ha’ been the same, and you’d ha’ been scalded and very like lamed for life, as there’s no knowing but what you will be some day if you go on; for anybody ’ud think you’d got the St. Vitus’s Dance, to see the things you’ve throwed down.  It’s a pity but what the bits was stacked up for you to see, though it’s neither seeing nor hearing as ’ull make much odds to you—­anybody ’ud think you war case-hardened.”

Poor Molly’s tears were dropping fast by this time, and in her desperation at the lively movement of the beer-stream towards Alick’s legs, she was converting her apron into a mop, while Mrs. Poyser, opening the cupboard, turned a blighting eye upon her.

“Ah,” she went on, “you’ll do no good wi’ crying an’ making more wet to wipe up.  It’s all your own wilfulness, as I tell you, for there’s nobody no call to break anything if they’ll only go the right way to work.  But wooden folks had need ha’ wooden things t’ handle.  And here must I take the brown-and-white jug, as it’s niver been used three times this year, and go down i’ the cellar myself, and belike catch my death, and be laid up wi’ inflammation....”

Mrs. Poyser had turned round from the cupboard with the brown-and-white jug in her hand, when she caught sight of something at the other end of the kitchen; perhaps it was because she was already trembling and nervous that the apparition had so strong an effect on her; perhaps jug-breaking, like other crimes, has a contagious influence.  However it was, she stared and started like a ghost-seer, and the precious brown-and-white jug fell to the ground, parting for ever with its spout and handle.

“Did ever anybody see the like?” she said, with a suddenly lowered tone, after a moment’s bewildered glance round the room.  “The jugs are bewitched, I think.  It’s them nasty glazed handles—­they slip o’er the finger like a snail.”