The vicar nodded, not being without a little faith in homely country simples; and then the rag was neatly sewed on, and an old glove cut so as to cover the unsightly bandage.
“Did they upset you?” she then queried.
“Well, no,” he said; and he briefly related what had taken place. “By the way, I hope that gentleman in the red waistcoat is no relation of yours. Is he?”
“Is he?” retorted Mrs Slee, viciously dabbing down a dish of tempting bacon, with some golden eggs, beside the crisp brown loaf and yellow butter. “Is he, indeed! He’s my master.”
Mrs Slee hurried out of the room, but came back directly after.
“You’ve no spoons,” she said, sharply; and then making a dive through her thin, shabby dress, she searched for some time for a pocket-hole, and then plunging her arm in right to the shoulder, she brought out a packet tied in a bit of calico. This being undone displayed a paper, and within this another paper was set free. Carefully folded, and fitted into one another, within this were half a dozen very small-sized, old-fashioned silver teaspoons, blackened with tarnish.
“They are quite clean,” grumbled Mrs Slee, giving a couple of them a rub. “They were my grandmother’s, and she gave ’em to me when I was married—worse luck. I keep ’em there so as they shan’t be drunk. He did swallow the sugar-tongs.”
“Does your husband drink, then?” said Mr Selwood, quietly.
“Is there anything he don’t do as he oughtn’t since they turned him out of the plan?” said the woman, angrily. “There, don’t you talk to me about him; it makes me wild when I don’t want to be.”
She hurried out of the room again, shutting the door as loudly as she possibly could without it’s being called a bang; and then hunger drove everything else out of the young vicar’s mind, even the face of Eve Pelly, and—a minor consideration—his bruised hand.