"What, you?" Her eyebrows arched and her lips curled. "You, oh, never. 'Smiting and praying'? 'The arm of the Flesh and the sword of the Spirit.'" She mouthed the words deliciously.
"But, doubtless, when you see my Lord Brocton again, you'll put in the Word and the praying." Here her sweet voice trailed off into a dainty snuffle: "'My dear lord, since out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth wisdom, hearken, I pray you, unto me, Oliver Wheatman, to wit of the Hanyards, and amend ye your ways lest I hit you over your cockscomb again, and very much harder than before. Repent ye, my lord, for the hour is at hand, and if you don't, I'll thump you into one of our Kate's blackberry jellies.' And here endeth the goodly discourse of that saintly rib-roaster, Master Hit-him-first-and-then-pray-for-him Wheatman of the Hanyards."
It was simply glorious to be so tormented by this witch with the dancing blue eyes.
"For this scandalous contempt of the Muses," said I soberly, "I shall punish you by frizzling your share of the ham to a cinder."
During my schoolboy days I had roamed the countryside till I knew it as an open book, and this minute knowledge was our salvation now. The immediate need was food, and food obtained without price and without our being observed by anyone. At seven o'clock on a hard winter morning in open country, this seemed to require a miracle. As a matter of fact, it was as easy as shelling peas.
Since crossing the heath we had been travelling nearer to one of the main roads, that leading out of the east gate to the town, and now we got our first glimpse of it lying like a broad, brown ribbon half-way down the slope of a very steep hill. In the upper half, this hill was pretty well wooded and the road cut clean through the wood, but between us and the wood there lay the level crest of the hill, cut by hedges into several fields, and crossed by a rough cart-track leading past a roomy, one-storied cottage, grey-walled and brown-thatched, and on through the wood into the main road. The cottage, with its outbuildings, made a little farmstead, and here lived Dick Doley and his wife Sal, who did a little farming, but mainly lived by huckstering. Today was market-day at Stafford, and unless they had broken the routine of half a lifetime, they would now be packing their little cart with marketables and soon be off for the town. They had neither chick nor child, lad-servant nor lassie, and they would leave the cottage empty and at our disposal. At this time of the day I could, of course, have trusted both, but they were very human bodies of a sort to rejoice the business side of the heart of Joe Braggs, and it was best not to give them the chance of blabbing later in the day when, for a moral certainty, they would both be market fresh. Besides, it was unfair to thrust myself on the kindness of anyone. I had more than once wondered what had happened to poor little Marry-me-quick.
I scrambled through the hedge and peeped down the road. I was right. Dick and his wife were busy loading up. So we waited behind the hedge till they had cleared off, and indeed did not move till I saw them and their cart pass along the road at the foot of the hill.
Time has not blurred the memory of a single detail of our stay in this welcome house of refuge, but the telling of what was moving and charming to me would, I fear, bore others. There was a ham, two indeed, and flitches beside, in the rack hanging from the ceiling, and there were eggs--three, to be precise--in the larder, to which, by equal good luck considering the time of the year, I added two more by a raid into the hen-house. It was all natural and simple enough, but Mistress Waynflete hailed their production almost as amazedly as if I had indeed drawn them out of my hat. But how I fetched and carried, chopped wood and drew water, swept the floor and laid the table, fried ham and boiled eggs, doing all these things with music in my heart and a noisy song on my lips--is everything to me and nothing to my tale.
Mistress Waynflete had disappeared into one of the three or four rooms of which the house consisted, to make herself presentable, as she absurdly put it. When the table was laid and the ham cooked, I halloed the news to her, and rushed off to the shed to attend to my outward appearance. I did want it, being indeed not far short of filthy.
Perhaps I hurried unexpectedly. At any rate, on returning I found Mistress Waynflete bending over something on the hearth. Straightening herself hastily, and with a pretty confusion, at my approach, she cried, "Oh, Master Oliver, the ham was burning, and you threatened my share of it, you know!"