"Go!" she said. "You're a wicked, bare-faced scamp, and God, He'll reward you. You did ought to be driven out of Little Silver by the dogs, and no right-thinking person ever let you over their drexels[2] no more."
"I'm punished enough," he told her. "Good-bye, my silly dear! A thousand pities you've took that little worm back. You'd have grown very fond of me in time. I'm worth a wagon-load of such rubbish as him."
He lit his pipe, cussed a bit more, hoping Spider would front him, and then went away, banging the gate off its hinges very near; and after he was well clear of the premises Nicky bounced out of his cupboard full of brimstone and thunder.
"Lock the door," he said, "or I'll be after him and strangle him with these hands!"
"I most feared you'd have blazed out and faced the wretch," said Jenny—to please the little man.
"I managed to hold in. I drew out my knife however; but I put it back again. I hadn't got the heart to spoil the night of my home-coming. His turn ain't far off. His thread's spun. Nothing short of his death be any good to me—not now."
"Us'll forget the scoundrel till to-morrow, then," said Mrs. White.
It was six months later and summer on the wane, when I met a fisherman on the river—a gent I knew—and made him laugh a good bit with the tale of they people.
"And what did Spider do after all, Mr. Bates?" inquired the fisher, when I came to the end of the story, and I answered him in a parable like.
"When the weasel sucked the robin's eggs, sir, the robin and his wife was properly mad about it and swore as they'd be fearfully revenged upon him."