"Then don't talk foolishness!" said she disdainfully. "You'll be glad t' eat an' ask no questions when you're hungry enough! And don't go pitying yourself and grieving over your bruises. If your eyes are bulged and blacked a bit--what of it? Lord! I've seen men get it worse than you an' come up smiling, but then to be sure they were men and stronger than you. However, you'll be better to-morrow! So now go to sleep and forget all about yourself if ye can--sleep till supper's ready and when I say eat--eat." "Many thanks, but I do not desire any supper." "Wait till you smell it!" "I shall neither smell it nor eat it," I answered, frowning, "because I propose to rid you of my presence almost immediately." "Meaning as you will cut your stick?" "Certainly not! I mean that I shall take my departure just so soon as I find myself sufficiently recovered." "Why, then," said she, compressing her lips and jutting her round chin at me in highly unfeminine fashion, "you'll have to jump or fly." "What do you mean?" "I shall take away the ladder!" "You would never do such a thing!" quoth I, starting. "Tush!" she retorted and, turning from me with a disdainful swirl of her short petticoat, began to descend into the depths below, seeing which, I scrambled to my feet and crossed to the trap, only to behold her standing beneath me, the ladder dragged quite out of my reach. "Fly down, little bird!" she cried insolently. "Jump, Jack--jump!" and snapping finger and thumb at me, was gone before my anger might find vent in words. Trapped and imprisoned thus, I presently came wandering disconsolately back to the hay-pile and lying there began to ponder upon the extreme unlovely deportment of this strange creature whose almost every speech and look and gesture outraged all my preconceived ideas of "the sex", and bitterly to deplore my present situation.