I seed the world at that time somewhat, certainly,
and many ways of strange dashing life. Not but that Giles has
worked hard in helping me to bring things to such perfection to-
day. 'Giles,' says I, though he's maister. Not that I should
call'n maister by rights, for his father growed up side by side
with me, as if one mother had twinned us and been our nourishing."
"I s'pose your memory can reach a long way back into history, Mr.
Creedle?"
"Oh yes. Ancient days, when there was battles and famines and
hang-fairs and other pomps, seem to me as yesterday. Ah, many's
the patriarch I've seed come and go in this parish! There, he's
calling for more plates. Lord, why can't 'em turn their plates
bottom upward for pudding, as they used to do in former days?"
Meanwhile, in the adjoining room Giles was presiding in a half-
unconscious state. He could not get over the initial failures in
his scheme for advancing his suit, and hence he did not know that
he was eating mouthfuls of bread and nothing else, and continually
snuffing the two candles next him till he had reduced them to mere
glimmers drowned in their own grease.
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