Mrs. Sumfit appealed in despair to Master Gammon, with entreaties, and a
ready dumpling.

"There, Mas' Gammon; and why you sh'd play at 'do believe' and at 'don't
believe,' after that awesome scene, the solem'est of life's, when you
did declare to me, sayin', it was a stride for boots out o' London this
morning. Your words, Mas' Gammon! and 'boots'-=it's true, if by that
alone! For, 'boots,' I says to myself--he thinks by 'boots,' there being
a cord'er in his family on the mother's side; which you yourself told
to me, as you did, Mas' Gammon, and now holds back, you did, like a bad
horse."

"Hey! does Gammon jib?" said the farmer, with the ghost of old laughter
twinkling in his eyes.

"He told me this tale," Mrs. Sumfit continued, daring her irresponsive
enemy to contradict her, with a threatening gaze. "He told me this tale,
he did; and my belief's, his game 's, he gets me into a corner--there to
be laughed at! Mas' Gammon, if you're not a sly old man, you said, you
did, he was drownded; your mother's brother's wife's brother; and he had
a brother, and what he was to you--that brother--" Mrs. Sumfit smote her
hands--"Oh, my goodness, my poor head! but you shan't slip away, Mas'
Gammon; no, try you ever so much. Drownded he was, and eight days in the
sea, which you told me over a warm mug of ale by the fire years back.
And I do believe them dumplings makes ye obstinate; for worse you get,
and that fond of 'em, I sh'll soon not have enough in our biggest pot.
Yes, you said he was eight days in the sea, and as for face, you said,
poor thing! he was like a rag of towel dipped in starch, was your own
words, and all his likeness wiped out; and Joe, the other brother, a
cord'er--bootmaker, you call 'em--looked down him, as he was stretched
out on the shore of the sea, all along, and didn't know him till he come
to the boots, and he says, 'It's Abner;' for there was his boots to know
him by. Now, will you deny, Mas' Gammon, you said, Mr. Hackbut's boots,
and a long stride it was for 'em from London? And I won't be laughed at
through arts of any sly old man!"

The circumstantial charge made no impression on Master Gammon, who was
heard to mumble, as from the inmost recesses of tight-packed dumpling;
but he left the vindication of his case to the farmer's laughter. The
mention of her uncle had started a growing agitation in Rhoda, to whom
the indication of his eccentric behaviour was a stronger confirmation of
his visit to