Tom Orange here interpolated his performance of the jackdaw, with his eyelids turned inside out and the pupils quivering, which, although it may possibly have resembled the jackdaw of heraldry, was not an exact portraiture of the bird familiar to us in natural history; and when this was over he asked again—“How soon will she be home?”
“She walked down to the town, and I think she can’t be more than about half-way back again.”
“That’s a mile, and three miles an hour is the best of her paces if she was runnin’ for a pound o’ sausages and a new cap. Heigh ho! and alas and alack-a-day. No one at home but the maid, and the maid’s gone to church! I wrote her a letter the day before yesterday, and I must read it again before she comes back. Where does she keep her letters?”
“In her work-box on the shelf.”
“This will be it, the wery identical fiddle!” said Tom Orange, playfully, setting it down upon the little deal table, and, opening it, he took out the little sheaf of letters from the end, and took them one by one to the window, where he took the liberty of reading them.
I think he was disappointed, for he pitched them back again into their nook in the little trunk-shaped box contemptuously.
The boy regarded Tom Orange as a friend of the family so confidential, and as a man in all respects so admirable and virtuous, that nothing appeared more desirable and natural than that excellent person’s giving his attention to the domestic correspondence.
He popped the box back again in its berth. Then he treated the young gentleman to Lingo’s song with the rag-tag-merry-derry perrywig and hat-band, &c., and at the conclusion of the performance admitted that he was “dry,” and with a pleasant wink, and the tip of his finger pushing the end of his nose a good deal to the left, he asked him whether he could tell him where Mrs. Trevellian, who would be deeply grieved if she thought that Tom was detained for a drink till her return, kept her liquor.
“Yes, I can show you,” said the boy.
“Wait a minute, my guide, my comforter, and friend,” said Tom Orange; and he ascertained from the door-stone that no one was inconveniently near.