“We will try on how little we can keep in fair health,” said Alice with a little laugh, “and save our money for time of more need. On what shall we do it, think you?”
“Why, I reckon we may look to do it on fourpence betwixt us.”
“Oh, surely!” said Alice. “Threepence, I well-nigh think.”
While this bargain was being made, Mr Benden sat down to supper, a pork pie standing before him, a dish of toasted cheese to follow, and a frothed tankard of ale at his elbow. Partly owing to her mistress’s exhortations, Mary had changed her tactics, and now sought to mollify her master by giving him as good a supper as she knew how to serve. But Mr Benden was hard to please this evening. “The pork is as tough as leather,” he declared; “the cheese is no better than sawdust, and the ale is flat as ditch-water.” And he demanded of Mary, in rasping tones, if she expected such rubbish to agree with him?
“Ah!” said Mary to herself as she shut the door on him, “’tis your conscience, Master, as doesn’t agree with you.”
Chapter Ten.
Trying experiments.
Old Grandfather Hall had got a lift in a cart from Frittenden, and came to spend the day with Roger and Christabel. It was a holy-day, for which cause Roger was at home, for in those times a holy-day was always a holiday, and the natural result was that holiday-making soon took the place of keeping holy. Roger’s leisure days were usually spent by the side of his little Christie.