'Gad!' said he, 'she
couldn' ha' looked at me worse if I'd been a tab!' meanin' to say
'instead o' the richest man in Tregarrick.'
"But her greatest freak was seen when th' Assizes came. Sir, she
wouldn' even go to the trial. She disdained it. An' when, that
mornin', the judges had driven by her window, same as they drove
to-day, what d'ee think she did?
"She began to lay the cloth up in the parlour yonder, an' there set
out the rarest meal, ready for her boy. There was meats, roasted
chickens, an' a tongue, an' a great ham. There was cheese-cakes that
she made after a little secret of her own; an' a bowl of junket,
an inch deep in cream, that bein' his pet dish; an' all kind o'
knick-knacks, wi' grapes an' peaches, an' apricots, an' decanters o'
wine, white an' red. Ay, sir, there was even crackers for mother an'
son to pull together, with scraps o' poetry inside. An' flowers--the
table was bloomin' with flowers. For weeks she'd been plannin' it: an'
all the forenoon she moved about an' around that table, givin' it
a touch here an' a touch there, an' takin' a step back to see how
beautiful it looked.
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