ss Grace, that ere salt pea-porridge a'n't nice, a'n't wholesome;
and, bless your pretty mouth, it ought to feed more sweetly. Look at
Acton, isn't he half-starved. Is Tom, brave boy, full o' the fat o' the
land? Who made fowl, I should like to know, and us to eat 'em? And
where's the harm or sin in bringing down a bird? No, Miss, them ere
beaks, dammem (beg humble pardon, Miss, indeed I won't again) them ere
justices, as they call themselves, makes hard laws to hedge about their
own pleasures; and if the poor man starves, he starves; but if he stays
his hunger with the free, wild birds of heaven, they prison him and
punish him, and call him poacher."

"Ben, those who make the laws, do so under God's permission; and they
who break man's law, break His law."

"Nonsense, child,"--suddenly said Roger; "hold your silly tongue. Do
you mean to tell us, God's law and man's law are the same thing! No,
Grace, I can't stomach that; God makes right, and man makes
might--riches go one way, and poor men's wrong's another. Money, money's
the great law-maker, and a full purse frees him that has it, while it
turns the jailor's key on the wretch that has it not: one of those
wretches is the hopeless Roger Acton. Well, well," he added, after a
despondent sigh, "say no more about it all; that's right,
good-wife--why, they do look plump. And if I can't stomach Grace's
text-talk there, I'm sure I can the birds; for I know what keeps crying
cupboard lustily."

It was a faint effort to be gay, and it only showed his gloom the
denser. Truly, he has quite enough to make him sad; but this is an
unhealthy sadness: the mists of mammon-worship, rising up, meet in the
mid aether of his mind, these lowering clouds of discontent: and the
seeming calamity, that should be but a trial to his faith, looks too
likely to wreck it.

So, then, the embers were raked up, the trivet stuck a-top, the savoury
broil made ready; and (all but Grace, who would not taste a morsel, but
went up straight to bed) never had the Actons yet sate down before so
rich a supper.

CHAPTER X.

BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE.

"TAKE a pull, Roger, and pass the flask," was the cordial
prescription of Ben Burke, intended to cure a dead silence, generated
equally of eager appetites and self-accusing consciences; so saying, he
produced a quart wicker-bottle, which enshrined, according to his
testimony, "summut short, the right stuff, stinging strong, that had
never seen