“Not arter that walk of ourn!” cried Caleb incredulously. “Oi count you’ve had your dinner somewhere else.”
“Yes, off the dog!” he said a bit crossly.
Caleb smiled. “Oi’ll not believe that,” he said with an air of infinite cuteness.
“I’ll have a drink,” condescended Will.
“Do!” Caleb passed him a large tin mug of water. “And there’s plenty more where that come from.” Will knew it was Brother Quint—the “snob” or shoemaker who lived next door—who supplied these limitless streams.
“Ain’t she beautifully polished?” Caleb went on naïvely, when his thirsty son set the mug down. “Holds noigh a quart—Oi never see sech mugs nowhere else! And Brother Quint’ll fill it with biling for our tea. There, Will! There’s your favourite sausages mother put in for you, special. None o’ your dogs in that!” And he chuckled, brimming over with holy glee.
Cooled by the long draught, Will allowed himself to be seduced by the veal sausages, and, finding with surprise that the first slid down his throat in a twinkling, he was soon depleting the parcel into a mere “muckinger.” And at this Caleb’s innocent happiness was complete.
But the fate that stalks mortals at their culminating felicities now sped its arrow. In excavating a pickled walnut from the remains of the parcel, Caleb loosed a minute cardboard box, which sprang maliciously to the floor and then, to the agitation of the neighbours, rolled round and round towards the table under the very eyes of the rat-catcher.
The Deacon stooped down zealously to pick it up, and then held it on high. It was a pill-box! “Who brought this?” he cried in stern prophetic accents, across the table.
The happy hubbub ceased, the holy glee was frozen. In a tense silence all eyes were turned on the profane symbol. Will saw his wretched father’s face go red and white, and his scraggy throat work painfully below the ragged white beard. Both the Flynts guessed at once that the careful Martha had slipped into the packet her husband’s usual pill before meals!