For that price they gave me a bedroom, a fair-sized
sitting-room and as much as I could eat.
"A month after my arrival, Farmer Retallack was put to bed with a
slight attack of colic. This was on a Wednesday, and on Saturday
morning Miss Jane Ann came knocking at my door with a message that the
old man would like to see me. So I went across to his room and found
him propped up in the bed with three or four pillows and looking very
yellow in the gills, though clearly convalescent.
"'Schoolmaster,' said he, 'I've a trifling favour to beg of ye. You
give the children a half-holiday, Saturdays--hey? Well, d'ye think ye
could drive the brown hoss, Trumpeter, into Tregarrick this afternoon?
The fact is, my old friend Abe Walters, that kept the Packhorse Inn is
lying dead, and they bury 'en at half after two to-day. I'd be main
glad to show respect at the funeral and tell Mrs. Walters how much
deceased 'll be missed, ancetera; but I might so well try to fly in
the air. Now if you could attend and just pass the word that I'm on my
back with the colic, but that you've come to show respect in my place,
I'd take it very friendly of ye.
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