"Why yes," said he,--"we used to think the tories, King George's men you know, were fair game; and when we happened to be in the neighbourhood of some of them that we knew were giving all the help they could to the enemy, we used to let them cook our dinners for us once in a while."
"How did you manage that, sir?"
"Why, they used to have little bake-ovens to cook their meats and so on, standing some way out from the house,--did you never gee one of them?--raised on four little heaps of stone; the bottom of the oven is one large flat stone, and the arch built over it;--they look like a great bee-hive. Well--we used to watch till we saw the good woman of the house get her oven cleverly heated, and put in her batch of bread, or her meat pie, or her pumpkin and apple pies!--whichever it was--there didn't any of 'em come much amiss--and when we guessed they were pretty nigh done, three or four of us would creep in and whip off the whole--oven and all!--to a safe place. I tell you," said he with a knowing nod of his head at the laughing Fleda,--"those were first-rate pies!"
"And then did you put the oven back again afterwards, grandpa?"
"I guess not often, dear!" replied the old gentleman.
"What do you think of such lawless proceedings, Miss Fleda?" said Mr. Carleton, laughing at or with her.
"O I like it," said Fleda. "You liked those pies all the better, didn't you, grandpa, because you had got them from the tories?"
"That we did! If we hadn't got them maybe King George's men would, in some shape. But we weren't always so lucky as to get hold of an oven full. I remember one time several of us had been out on a foraging expedition---- there, sir, what do you think of that for a two and a half year old?"
They had come up with the chief favourite of his barn-yard, a fine deep-coloured Devon bull.
"I don't know what one might see in Devonshire," he remarked presently, "but I know this country can't shew the like of him!"