- end_line
- 6158
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6072
- text
- quite mossy and toad-stooled with long lying bedded among the
accumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and
vain spluttering enough.
‘You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least,’ said the dame;
‘what I have you are heartily welcome to.’
I thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the
least, but go on with her usual affairs.
I was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and
constitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness
upon them. The shrivelled sashes shook in their frames, and the green
panes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand
the dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly open.
The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen was. Nothing but
bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best sort. Not a
print on the wall; but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the smoked
chimney-shelf.
‘You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness.’
‘No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say.’
‘Oh, but _I_ am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think,’ and
her soft, sad, blue eye ran over my dress. ‘But I must sweep these
shavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before
sunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to
clear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They’d be
much better, though, were they not so green.’
Now if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those
green shavings ‘Poor Man’s Matches,’ or ‘Poor Man’s Tinder,’ or some
pleasant name of that sort.
‘I do not know,’ said the good woman, turning round to me again, as she
stirred among her pots on the smoky fire--‘I do not know how you will
like our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.’
‘Ah, what they call “Poor Man’s Pudding,” I suppose you mean.’
A quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.
‘_We_ do not call it so, sir,’ she said, and was silent.
Upbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to
myself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and seen
that flush.
At last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door,
and another voice said, ‘Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again in
a jiff--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be
speedy; because the Squire---- Good-day, sir,’ he exclaimed, now first
catching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his wife,
inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from his
patched boots to the floor.
‘This gentleman stops here a while to rest and refresh: he will take
dinner with us, too. All will be ready now in a trice: so sit down on
the bench, husband, and be patient, I pray. You see, sir,’ she
continued, turning to me, ‘William there wants, of mornings, to carry a
cold meal into the woods with him, to save the long one-o’clock walk
across the fields to and fro. But I won’t let him. A warm dinner is more
than pay for the long walk.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said William, shaking his head. ‘I have often
debated in my mind whether it really paid. There’s not much odds, either
way, between a wet walk after hard work, and a wet dinner before it. But
I like to oblige a good wife like Martha. And you know, sir, that women
will have their whimseys.’
‘I wish they all had as kind whimseys as your wife has,’ said I.
‘Well, I’ve heard that some women ain’t all maple-sugar; but, content
with dear Martha, I don’t know much about others.’
‘You find rare wisdom in the woods,’ mused I.
‘Now, husband, if you ain’t too tired, just lend a hand to draw the
table out.’
‘Nay,’ said I; ‘let him rest, and let me help.’
‘No,’ said William, rising.
‘Sit still,’ said his wife to me.
- title
- Chunk 3