"How could I refuse when I know your fame as a cook?" he said with a smile at Becky and a wink at Chris, and put his horny forefinger and thumb the distance of a thread apart. "But a crumb, Mistress Becky. A morsel. A taste. Just to pay my respects to your art, as it were."
Then such a commotion took place in the kitchen. Chris watched flabbergasted, as Becky set before Cilley a meat pie, a large cheese, fruit preserves, two kinds of bread, cakes and cookies, latticed tarts, and pickles in jars. And with a beaming smile Becky drew from a cask a jugful of ale which she set down on the table with a thud.
"Just a morsel, Master Cilley," she said, adding in a coaxing tone, "Try just a taste, to please me."
Ned Cilley, his eyes winking with anticipation and smacking his lips, attacked the meat pie and the cheese, tarts and pickles, with a will.
"Here—try this," he urged Chris, heaping the boy's plate as lavishly as his own, and the two ate in silence and gusto while Becky stood by with roses and feathers bobbing.
"You must keep your strength up, Ned Cilley," she admonished, "for 'tis a hard life that you lead," she warned him.
Ned paused long enough to swallow. "Aye, that it is, that it is!" he agreed, wagging his head, champing his jaws, and digging into the food. "A hard life, has a sailor," Ned said with an effort at sorrow, which failed signally, and he took a great draught of the ale.
After a while Cilley slowed, wiped his mouth with his hand and leaned back in his chair, rolling a dazed eye at the anxious face of the waiting Becky Boozer.
"Mistress Boozer," he announced, "I am a new man." He heaved a sigh of repletion. "You have saved me again. Ah! Mistress Becky, what a treasure you are!"
Becky curtsied and giggled, her fabulous hat shaking as if with a secret all its own. Just then a bell tinkled, at the end of the kitchen passage.