"
Whereupon the reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and did bend
forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did severally taste four
white solid substances upon an oaken board; said board being about
two yards long, and one yard four inches wide,--found in, and
brought thither from, the tenement or messuage of Andrew Haggit, who
hath absconded. Of these four white solid substances, two were
somewhat larger than a groat, and thicker; one about the size of
King Henry the Eighth's shilling, when our late sovereign lord of
blessed memory was toward the lustiest; and the other, that is to
say the middlemost, did resemble in some sort, a mushroom, not over
fresh, turned upward on its stalk.
"And what sayest thou, Master Silas?" quoth the knight.
In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred:-
"Venison! o' my conscience!
Buck! or burn me alive!
The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed
venison; buck, moreover,--and Charlecote buck, upon my oath!"
Then carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he spat it
out, crying, -
"Pho! pho! villain! villain!" and shaking his fist at the culprit.
Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said off-hand, -
"Save thy spittle, Silas! It would supply a gaudy mess to the
hungriest litter; but it would turn them from whelps into wolvets.
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