I've wished again and again I'd been a bloody minded man,
that I could have strangled the mother and the brats with one cord."
"I'm glad it was no worse a cause kept you from church," said Adam. "I
was afraid you must be ill for the first time i' your life. And I was
particularly sorry not to have you at church yesterday."
"Ah, my boy, I know why, I know why," said Bartle kindly, going up to
Adam and raising his hand up to the shoulder that was almost on a level
with his own head. "You've had a rough bit o' road to get over since I
saw you--a rough bit o' road. But I'm in hopes there are better times
coming for you. I've got some news to tell you. But I must get my supper
first, for I'm hungry, I'm hungry. Sit down, sit down."
Bartel went into his little pantry, and brought out an excellent
home-baked loaf; for it was his one extravagance in these dear times
to eat bread once a-day instead of oat-cake; and he justified it by
observing, that what a schoolmaster wanted was brains, and oat-cake ran
too much to bone instead of brains. Then came a piece of cheese and a
quart jug with a crown of foam upon it. He placed them all on the
round deal table which stood against his large arm-chair in the
chimney-corner, with Vixen's hamper on one side of it and a window-shelf
with a few books piled up in it on the other.
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