“That is true,” said half a dozen voices at once. They could resist common sense in its liquid form, but not when solidified into a proverb.
“Catch me the boy,” said Miss Gale, severely.
Habitual culpability destroys self-confidence; so the boy suspected himself of crime, and instantly took to flight. His companions loved hunting; so three swifter boys followed him with a cheerful yell, secured him, and brought him up for sentence.
“Don't be frightened, Jacob,” said the doctress. “I only want to know whether you feel better or worse.”
His mother put in her word: “He was ever so bad all the morning.”
“Hold your jaw,” said old Giles, “and let the boy tell his own tale.”
“Well, then,” said Jacob, “I was mortal bad, but now do I feel like a feather; wust on't is, I be so blessed hungry now. Dall'd if I couldn't eat the devil—stuffed with thunder and lightning.”
“I'll prescribe accordingly,” said Miss Gale, and wrote in pencil an order on a beefsteak pie they had sent her from the Court.
The boy's companions put their heads together over this order, and offered their services to escort him.
“No, thank you,” said the doctress. “He will go alone, you young monkeys. Your turn will come.”