limate and the British
Government.

"I don't 'xpect nothing, Mr. Jellyband," he said. "Pore folks like us is
of no account up there in Lunnon, I knows that, and it's not often as I
do complain. But when it comes to sich wet weather in September, and all
me fruit a-rottin' and a-dying' like the 'Guptian mother's first born,
and doin' no more good than they did, pore dears, save a lot more Jews,
pedlars and sich, with their oranges and sich like foreign ungodly
fruit, which nobody'd buy if English apples and pears was nicely
swelled. As the Scriptures say--"

"That's quite right, Mr. 'Empseed," retorted Jellyband, "and as I says,
what can you 'xpect? There's all them Frenchy devils over the Channel
yonder a-murderin' their king and nobility, and Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox
and Mr. Burke a-fightin' and a-wranglin' between them, if we Englishmen
should 'low them to go on in their ungodly way. 'Let 'em murder!' says
Mr. Pitt. 'Stop 'em!' says Mr. Burke."

"And let 'em murder, says I, and be demmed to 'em." said Mr. Hempseed,
emphatically, for he had but little liking for his friend Jellyband's
political arguments, wherein he always got out of his depth, and had but
little chance for displaying those pearls of wisdom which had earned for
him so high a reputation in the neighbourhood and so many free tankards
of ale at "The Fisherman's Rest."

"Let 'em murder," he repeated again, "but don't lets 'ave sich rain in
September, for that is agin the law and the Scriptures which says--"

"Lud! Mr. 'Arry, 'ow you made me jump!"

It was unfortunate for Sally and her flirtation that this remark of
hers should have occurred at the precise moment when Mr. Hempseed
was collecting his breath, in order to deliver himself one of those
Scriptural utterances which made him famous, for it brought down upon
her pretty head the full flood of her father's wrath.

"Now then, Sally, me girl, now then!" he said, trying to force a
frown upon his good-humoured face, "stop that fooling with them young
jackanapes and get on with the work."

"The work's gettin' on all ri', father."

But Mr. Jellyband was peremptory. He had other views for his buxom
daughter, his only child, who would in God's good time become the owner
of "The Fisherman's Rest," than to see her married to one of these young
fellows who earned but a precarious livelihood with their net.

"Did ye hear me speak, me girl?" he said in that quiet tone, which no
one inside the inn dared to