The Woodlanders - Page 64/314

"I'm afraid, too, that it was a failure there!"

"If so, 'twere doomed to be so. Not but what that snail might as well

have come upon anybody else's plate as hers."

"What snail?"

"Well, maister, there was a little one upon the edge of her plate when

I brought it out; and so it must have been in her few leaves of

wintergreen."

"How the deuce did a snail get there?"

"That I don't know no more than the dead; but there my gentleman was."

"But, Robert, of all places, that was where he shouldn't have been!"

"Well, 'twas his native home, come to that; and where else could we

expect him to be? I don't care who the man is, snails and caterpillars

always will lurk in close to the stump of cabbages in that tantalizing

way."

"He wasn't alive, I suppose?" said Giles, with a shudder on Grace's

account.

"Oh no. He was well boiled. I warrant him well boiled. God forbid

that a LIVE snail should be seed on any plate of victuals that's served

by Robert Creedle....But Lord, there; I don't mind 'em myself--them

small ones, for they were born on cabbage, and they've lived on

cabbage, so they must be made of cabbage. But she, the close-mouthed

little lady, she didn't say a word about it; though 'twould have made

good small conversation as to the nater of such creatures; especially

as wit ran short among us sometimes."

"Oh yes--'tis all over!" murmured Giles to himself, shaking his head

over the glooming plain of embers, and lining his forehead more than

ever. "Do you know, Robert," he said, "that she's been accustomed to

servants and everything superfine these many years? How, then, could

she stand our ways?"

"Well, all I can say is, then, that she ought to hob-and-nob elsewhere.

They shouldn't have schooled her so monstrous high, or else bachelor

men shouldn't give randys, or if they do give 'em, only to their own

race."

"Perhaps that's true," said Winterborne, rising and yawning a sigh.