id for your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the
same."

Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of
place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I
entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long
pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.

"They rogues have had all the best of our victuals," he said, as soon
as he had kissed me. "Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome
to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain
to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat
again."

Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never
paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry
knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well
to keep them up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to
see what broken bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered
that he was not cross.

"Thank God for a better meal than I deserve," he said, when they all had
finished. "Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now
if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in
the dumps. But that will never do, my lad."

He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the
two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I,
who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that
something was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the
mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed,
and not a friend could be found to help him?

When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and
Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned
back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe
and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple
and outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and
seemed to be turning some grief in his mind.

"It ain't for the money," he said at last, talking more to himself than
to me; "the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of
way. But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought
to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can
run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them?
'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me."