reupon the master, having done his duty, was relieved from overdoing
it, and went on other business with a peaceful mind. The feelings,
however, of Mr. Swipes were not to be appeased so lightly, but demanded
the immediate satisfaction of a pint of beer. And so large was his
charity that if his master fell short of duty upon that point, he
accredited him with the good intention, and enabled him to discharge it.

"My dear soul," he said, with symptoms of exhaustion, to good Mrs.
Cloam, the housekeeper, who had all the keys at her girdle, about ten
o'clock on the Monday morning, "what a day we did have yesterday!"

"A mercy upon me, Mr. Swipes," cried Mrs. Cloam, who was also short of
breath, "how you did exaggerate my poor narves, a-rushing up so soft,
with the cold steel in both your hands!"

"Ah! ma'am, it have right to be a good deal wuss than that," the
chivalrous Swipes made answer, with the scythe beside his ear. "It don't
consarn what the masters say, though enough to take one's legs off. But
the ladies, Mrs. Cloam, the ladies--it's them as takes our heads off."

"Go 'long with you, Mr. Swipes! You are so disastrous at turning things.
And how much did he say you was to have this time? Here's Jenny Shanks
coming up the passage."

"Well, he left it to myself; he have that confidence in me. And little
it is I should ever care to take, with the power of my own will, ma'am.
Why, the little brown jug, ma'am, is as much as I can manage even of our
small beer now. Ah! I know the time when I would no more have thought
of rounding of my mouth for such small stuff than of your growing up,
ma'am, to be a young woman with the sponsorship of this big place upon
you. Wonderful! wonderful! And only yesterday, as a man with a gardening
mind looks at it, you was the prettiest young maiden on the green, and
the same--barring marriage--if you was to encounter with the young men
now."

"Oh," said Mrs. Cloam, who was fifty, if a day, "how you do make me
think of sad troubles, Mr. Swipes! Jenny, take the yellow jug with the
three beef-eaters on it, and go to the third cask from the door--the key
turns upside down, mind--and let me hear you whistle till you bring me
back the key. Don't tell me nonsense about your lips being dry. You can
whistle like a blackbird when you choose."

"Here's to your excellent health, Mrs. Cloam, and as blooming as it
finds you now, ma'am! As pretty a tap as I taste since Christmas, and
another dash of