“Yes, I can eat breakfast on the strength of that.”
He spread this letter out beside his plate, and read and reread it as he ate, while his eyes flashed with a strange half humourous light.
“Really, that’s fine, isn’t it?”
“You sower of sedition and rebellion, hypocrite and false prophet. The day has come to clean this county of treason and traitors. If you dare to urge the people to further resistance to authority, there will be one traitor less in this county.”
“That sounds like the voice of a Daniel come to judgment, don’t it?”
“I think Ezra Perkins might know something about it.”
“I am sure of it.”
“Well, I’m duly grateful, it’s done for you what your wife couldn’t do, cheered you up this morning.”
“That is so, isn’t it? It takes a violent poison sometimes to stimulate the heart’s action.”
“Now if you will work the garden for me, where I’ve been watering it the past month, you will be yourself by dinner time.”