Page:She's all the world to me. A novel (IA shesallworldtome00cain 0).pdf/65

 The lad sat quietly and meekly on a form near the door.

The supper was lifted direct on to the table from the pans and boilers that simmered on the hearth. First came the broth well loaded with barley and cabbage, but not destitute of the flavor of two sheep's heads. Then the suet pudding, round as a well-fed salmon and as long as a twenty-pound cod. After this came three legs of boiled mutton and a square block of roast beef. Last of all the frying-pan was taken from the niche of the Madonna, and two or three dozen of fresh herrings were made to frizzle and crackle and bark and sputter over the fire.

Away went the dishes, away went the cloth, an oil lamp with its open mouth—a relic, perhaps, of some monkish sanctuary of the Middle Ages—was lifted from the mantel-piece and put on the table for the receipt of customs; the censer with the spills was placed beside it, pipes emerged from the waistcoat-pockets, and pots of liquor with glasses and bottles came in from the outer bar.

"Is it heavy on the beer you're goin' to be, Bill?" said Davy Cain.

Kisseck replied with a superior smile and the lifting up of a whisky bottle from which he had just drawn the cork.

Then came the toasts. The chairman rose, amid "Hip, hip, hooraa," to give "Life to man and death to fish." Kisseck gave "Death to the head that never wore hair," Tommy-Bill-beg responded to loud requests for "The Ladies." He reminded the company of the old saying, "No herring, no wedding;" and