Who was Boldero, Elijah thought a more sensible question. But he picked up his pipe with an apology. “All right, uncle, no harm done.” He wiped his forehead. “Warm, ain’t it?”
“Then why do ye want hell-smoke?”
“I shouldn’t quite call this hell-smoke,” Elijah deprecated.
“There’s no smoke without hell-fire,” Daniel explained. “Farmer Thoroughgood, he smoked just such a pipe as yourn.”
“And he was thorough good, you see,” said Elijah with an air of victorious repartee.
“Thorough bad,” chuckled the Gaffer with a still greater air of wit. “Starved his missus to death. The neighbours as come, to see the corpse found her on a bed made out of a common sheep-hurdle, stood on bricks.” He tapped the Bible with a dirty thumb. “Do ye don’t yoke a hoss and ass together, says the Book. But that evil-doer used to plough a field with a cow and a donkey, and when it ploughed too hard, he’d harness an old sow in front of the donkey—there’s currant-trees there now what pays better, not needin’ no ploughin’.”
“Quite like the old song,” observed Elijah, still feeling superior and witty. “There was a cow went out to plough.”
“Chrissimus Day, Chrissimus Day,” hummed the old man. Set agoing, he quavered on:
“There was a pig went out to dig
On Chrissimus Day in the marning!