uld.

Of course Bill Westaway felt a good bit disappointed. He cussed Spider up
hill and down dale and poured a torrent of rude words upon him.

"That know-nought, black swine come back! And you put him afore the likes
of me I You don't deserve a decent man," he finished up. "And the patience
and trouble I've took, thinking you was worth it!"

"Go!" she said. "You're a wicked, bare-faced scamp, and God, He'll reward
you. You did ought to be driven out of Little Silver by the dogs, and no
right-thinking person ever let you over their drexels[1] no more."

[1] Drexels = Thresholds

"I'm punished enough," he told her. "Good-bye, my silly dear! A thousand
pities you've took that little worm back. You'd have grown very fond of me
in time. I'm worth a wagon-load of such rubbish as him."

He lit his pipe, cussed a bit more, hoping Spider would front him, and
then went away, banging the gate off its hinges very near; and after he
was well clear of the premises Nicky bounced out of his cupboard full of
brimstone and thunder.

"Lock the door," he said, "or I'll be after him and strangle him with
these hands!"

"I most feared you'd have blazed out and faced the wretch," said Jenny--to
please the little man.

"I managed to hold in. I drew out my knife however; but I put it back
again. I hadn't got the heart to spoil the night of my home-coming. His
turn ain't far off. His thread's spun. Nothing short of his death be any
good to me--not now."

"Us'll forget the scoundrel till to-morrow, then," said Mrs. White.

It was six months later and summer on the wane, when I met a fisherman on
the river--a gent I knew--and made him laugh a good bit with the tale of
they people.

"And what did Spider do after all, Mr. Bates?" inquired the fisher, when I
came to the end of the story, and I answered him in a parable like.

"When the weasel sucked the robin's eggs, sir, the robin and his wife was
properly mad about it and swore as they'd be fearfully revenged upon him."

"And what did they do?" axed the gentleman.

"What could they do?" I axed him back.

"Nothing."

"That's exactly what they did do; and that's exactly what Nicky White
done--nothing. Once--in the street a bit after he'd come home--Will
Westaway turned round and saw Spider making hideous faces at him behind
his back. So he walked across the road and smacked the little man's
earhole and pulled his beard. Nought happened, however."

"And what became of Willi