“And send old Jones the constable, to execute it,” assented the Squire.
Tod flung back his head. “Old Jones! Much use he’d be! Why, father, Eunice Gibbon alone could settle old Jones with his shaky legs. She’d pitch him out at the first window.”
“Jones can take help, Joe.”
******
It was the breakfast hour at the Torr, eight o’clock. The meal was being taken in the kitchen. Less semblance of gentility than even in the former days was kept up; all usages of comfort and refinement had departed with old Mr. Radcliffe and Selina. Stephen was swallowing his eggs and rashers of bacon quickly. Tuesday is Alcester market-day, and he was going in to attend it, expecting to sell some of his newly-gathered crop of hay. Mrs. Stephen sat opposite him, eating bacon also; and Eunice Gibbon stood at the dresser, mixing some meal for the fattening of fowls. Miserly though Stephen was by nature, he liked a good table, and took care to have it.
“Could you bring some starch home, master?” asked Eunice, turning her head round to speak.
“Why can’t you get your starch here?” retorted Stephen.
“Well, it’s a farthing less a pound at Alcester than it is at Church Dykely,” said Eunice. “They’ve rose it here.”
Farthings were farthings in Stephen’s eyes, and he supposed he might as well bring the starch. “How much is wanted of it?” he growled.
“We’d better have a pound,” interposed Becca. “Half pounds don’t get the benefit of the farthing: you can’t split a farthing in two. Shall you be home early?” she continued to her husband.