e upon my heels to make me stop and rub
them. "Why, John," said I, "you'm got a log with round holes in the end
of it. Who has been cutting gun-wads? Just lift your apron, or I will."

But, to return to Tom Faggus--he stopped to sup that night with us, and
took a little of everything; a few oysters first, and then dried salmon,
and then ham and eggs, done in small curled rashers, and then a few
collops of venison toasted, and next to that a little cold roast-pig,
and a woodcock on toast to finish with, before the Scheidam and hot
water. And having changed his wet things first, he seemed to be in fair
appetite, and praised Annie's cooking mightily, with a kind of noise
like a smack of his lips, and a rubbing of his hands together, whenever
he could spare them.

He had gotten John Fry's best small-clothes on, for he said he was not
good enough to go into my father's (which mother kept to look at), nor
man enough to fill them. And in truth my mother was very glad that he
refused, when I offered them. But John was over-proud to have it in his
power to say that such a famous man had ever dwelt in any clothes of
his; and afterwards he made show of them. For Mr. Faggus's glory, then,
though not so great as now it is, was spreading very fast indeed all
about our neighbourhood, and even as far as Bridgewater.

Tom Faggus was a jovial soul, if ever there has been one, not making
bones of little things, nor caring to seek evil. There was about him
such a love of genuine human nature, that if a traveller said a good
thing, he would give him back his purse again. It is true that he took
people's money more by force than fraud; and the law (being used to the
inverse method) was bitterly moved against him, although he could quote
precedent. These things I do not understand; having seen so much of
robbery (some legal, some illegal), that I scarcely know, as here we
say, one crow's foot from the other. It is beyond me and above me, to
discuss these subjects; and in truth I love the law right well, when it
doth support me, and when I can lay it down to my liking, with prejudice
to nobody. Loyal, too, to the King am I, as behoves churchwarden; and
ready to make the best of him, as he generally requires. But after
all, I could not see (until I grew much older, and came to have some
property) why Tom Faggus, working hard, was called a robber and felon of
great; while the King, doing nothing at all (as became his dignity), was
liege-lord,