us, madam," I answered with indignation, "for beer is
my favourite beverage; and I am a credit to beer, madam; and so are all
who trust to it."

"At any rate, you are, young man. If beer has made you grow so large, I
will put my children upon it; it is too late for me to begin. The smell
to me is hateful."

Now I only set down that to show how perverse those foreign people
are. They will drink their wretched heartless stuff, such as they call
claret, or wine of Medoc, or Bordeaux, or what not, with no more meaning
than sour rennet, stirred with the pulp from the cider press, and
strained through the cap of our Betty. This is very well for them; and
as good as they deserve, no doubt, and meant perhaps by the will of God,
for those unhappy natives. But to bring it over to England and set it
against our home-brewed ale (not to speak of wines from Portugal) and
sell it at ten times the price, as a cure for British bile, and a great
enlightenment; this I say is the vilest feature of the age we live in.

Madam Benita Odam--for the name of the man who turned the wheel proved
to be John Odam--showed me into a little room containing two chairs and
a fir-wood table, and sat down on a three-legged seat and studied me
very steadfastly. This she had a right to do; and I, having all my
clothes on now, was not disconcerted. It would not become me to repeat
her judgment upon my appearance, which she delivered as calmly as if I
were a pig at market, and as proudly as if her own pig. And she asked me
whether I had ever got rid of the black marks on my breast.

Not wanting to talk about myself (though very fond of doing so, when
time and season favour) I led her back to that fearful night of the day
when first I had seen her. She was not desirous to speak of it,
because of her own little children; however, I drew her gradually to
recollection of Lorna, and then of the little boy who died, and the
poor mother buried with him. And her strong hot nature kindled, as she
dwelled upon these things; and my wrath waxed within me; and we forgot
reserve and prudence under the sense of so vile a wrong. She told me
(as nearly as might be) the very same story which she had told to Master
Jeremy Stickles; only she dwelled upon it more, because of my knowing
the outset. And being a woman, with an inkling of my situation, she
enlarged upon the little maid, more than to dry Jeremy.

"Would you know her again?" I asked, being stirred by these accounts