"Yes, yes, to your spinning," Plunkett returned testily. "Do you expect to do nothing but entertain us with conversation? To your spinning, I said." Then all at once the women burst out laughing. "Are ye good for nothing?" Plunkett shouted, in a greater rage. "Come, we've had enough of this! You go and bring those spindles," and Plunkett shouted this so loudly that the girls were downright frightened at last. "Oh, do not scold us," Martha entreated, shrinking back. "No, no, brother, let us be gentle." "Stuff! Now, girls, you get at that spinning wheel as I tell you." The two girls looked at each other. They no longer dared carry matters with a high hand, and yet how could they spin? They knew no more how to spin than did a couple of pussy-cats. After going up to the wheels and looking at them in wonder, they exclaimed: "I can't." "What?" yelled Plunkett. "We--we don't know how." "Well, upon my soul!" Plunkett cried. "Now you two sit down there as quick as you can." They sat as if they were shot. Plunkett seemed very much in earnest. "Now turn those wheels!" "They--they will _not_ turn," they cried, trying and making an awful botch of it. "Twist the thread," Lionel instructed with much anxiety. "O Lord! It _won't_ twist, they _won't_ turn. Oh, good gracious! We can't! we can't do it at all." "Now then, look at this," Plunkett cried, and he took Nancy from the chair, and seated himself at the spinning wheel; and Lionel unseated Martha--gently--and took her place, and then the fun began. "Now watch--and we will teach you something about this business." This way set the wheel a-flying, Set it whirring, set it flying. Work the treadle with a will. While an even thread you're plying, Never let your wheel be still. Come, you will not lose by trying, I can see you have good will. And while the girls joined in this gay spinning song, the men buzzed an accompaniment of "Brr, brr, brr," and the fun waxed fast and furious, the men spinning faster and faster every moment, the girls becoming more and more excited with watching and trying to learn--because they now saw that there was nothing for them but to begin business; and more than this, they began almost to like the farmer chaps. After a moment, first one began to laugh, then another, till suddenly they all dragged off into a merry "ha, ha, ha!" Look! How the busy task he's plying, Hercules is at the wheel; Look, I too can set it flying, Scold me if I do it ill Nancy--or rather Julia--sang, as she took a turn at it. All had turned to fun and frolic, and now even Lady Harriet--or Martha--could not withstand the temptation to try her hand; so down she sat, and away she went spinning, and singing with the best of them. Suddenly Nancy upset her wheel, Plunkett gaily threatened her, and away she ran, with Plunkett chasing after her. In a minute they had disappeared, and Martha was left alone with Lionel.