Poor Mr Benden! He felt himself fairly caught. He did not quite want to tell a point blank falsehood.
“They be good eggs, Tabitha, and Mall wist well how to dress them,” he urged. “You were best—”
“You were best answer my question, Edward Benden: Did you in any wise excite yon mitred scoundrel to this act?”
“Your language, Tabitha, doth verily ’shame me. ‘Mitred scoundrel,’ in good sooth! Fear you not to be brought afore the justices for—”
“I fear nought so much as I fear you are a slippery snake, as well as a roaring lion,” said Tabitha, in grim defiance of natural history. “Answer my question, or I’ll make you!”
Until that moment Mr Benden had not noticed that Tabitha kept one hand behind her. It suddenly struck him now, in disagreeable combination with the threat she uttered.
“What have you behind your back?” he said uneasily.
“A succade to follow your eggs, which you shall have if you demerit it.”
“What mean you, Sister Tabitha?”
“Let be your slimy coaxing ways. Answer my question.”