But her husband, whom long experience had taught the best mode of weathering such storms, only shook his head in silence, until the good woman, after a variety of ejaculations and expletives, finding that she made no more impression on him than children's pop-guns on a sand-bank, concluded to cool down, when she asked what the Governor said to him.
Sam, glad that the current had taken another direction, answered readily "a mountain of questions about Philip. And he wanted to know why I put so many irons on him—how he found it out, the Lord only knows, unless"—here Bars sunk his voice, so that the words were inaudible to the listener, and he lost a sentence or two—"and when he dismissed me, he ordered that I should never do it again without his consent, and then sent me into the kitchen, where I had a pottle of sack."
"A whole pottle of sack!" exclaimed his wife, in a tone of disappointment; "and here was I at home, as dry in this outlandish hot weather as the children of Israel at Rephidim, when they did chide Moses because there was no water to drink." "You might have brought your own Margery a taste," she added, reproachfully.
"Did I say I had a whole pottle? If I did, I spoke only in a figure, as one may say; for there was Ephraim Pike to help me make away with it, and you know his gullet is like a London sewer. Love your bright eyes, Margery, a quart of sack stands no more chance with Ephraim, when his nose once gets scent of the liquor, or his lips touch the edge of the mug, than a mouse among a dozen cats."
"Or than it has with you, Sam. But men be all alike; they be always guzzling; they never think of their poor wives. Here am I, Margery Bars, thine own help-meet, never away from home; never running about streets and going to Governor's houses to swill sack; never"—but here the voice of the discontented woman, who, in her excitement, had risen from her seat and walked away, was lost in the pantry, or rather subdued into an inarticulate grumble; and Spikeman, after waiting awhile, and finding it improbable that the conversation would be resumed, knocked in a peculiar manner on the door, which was almost immediately opened by Bars himself.
"Hath the order for the soldier's release arrived from the Governor?" inquired the Assistant.
"It hath, worshipful sir; he is to be dismissed in the morning," answer the jailer.
"Hast said anything about it to Joy, as I requested thee not?"
"He knows no more concerning it than the logs of his dungeon," said Bars.
"Then get the keys, and means to strike a light."