Ha! I see what
it is," added Ben, pouring forth a benediction on their frugal supper;
"it's that precious belly-ache porridge that's a-giving you all the
'flensy. Tip it down the sink, dame, will you now? and trust to me for
better. Your Tom here, Roger, 's a lad o' mettle, that he is; ay, and
that old iron o' yours as true as a compass; and the pheasants would
come to it, all the same as if they'd been loadstoned. Here, dame, pluck
the fowl, will you: drop 'em, Tom."--And Thomas Acton flung upon the
table a couple of fine cock-pheasants.
Roger, Mary, and Grace, who were well accustomed to Ben Burke's eloquent
tirades, heard the end of this one with anxiety and silence; for Tom
had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was
at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of
high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's
marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual _corpus
delicti_; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they
were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to
pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with a
conscience-sting that almost made him start, his stolen bit of money in
the morning--so, how could he condemn? He only looked pityingly on
Thomas, and sighed from the bottom of his heart.
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