irectly by quite an eager look from its
occupant, as he made his petition.

The Weathercock--by George Manville Fenn

CHAPTER TWO.

AUNT AND UNCLE.

"No, Master Vane, I'll not," cried cook, bridling up, and looking as if
an insult had been offered to her stately person; "and if master and
missus won't speak, it's time someone else did."

"But I only want them just plainly stewed with a little butter, pepper,
and salt," said Vane, with the basket in his hand.

"A little butter and pepper and salt, sir!" cried cook reproachfully; "a
little rhubar' and magneshire, you mean, to keep the nasty pysonous
thinks from hurting of you. Really I do wonder at you, sir, a-going
about picking up such rubbish."

"But they're good food--good to eat."

"Yes, sir; for toads and frogs. Don't tell me, sir. Do you think I
don't know what's good Christian food when I see it, and what isn't?"

"I know you think they're no good, but I want to try them as an
experiment."

"Life isn't long enough, sir, to try sperrymens, and I'd sooner go and
give warning at once than be the means of laying you on a bed of agony
and pain."

"Oh, well, never mind, cook, let me do them myself."

"What?" cried the stout lady in such a tone of indignant surprise that
the lad felt as if he had been guilty of a horrible breach of etiquette,
and made his retreat, basket and all, toward the door.

But he had roused Martha, who, on the strength of many years' service
with the doctor and his lady in London, had swollen much in mind as well
as grown stout in body, and she followed him to the kitchen-door where
he paused without opening it, for fear of the dispute reaching the ears
of aunt and uncle in the breakfast-room.

"Look here, Martha," he said, "don't be cross. Never mind. I'm sorry I
asked you."

"Cross? Cross, Master Vane? Is it likely I should make myself cross
about a basketful of rubbishing toadstools that you've wasted your time
in fetching out of the woods?"

"No, no, you are not cross, and I beg your pardon."

"And I wouldn't have thought it of you, sir. The idee, indeed, of you
wanting to come and meddle here in my kitchen!"

"But I don't want to, I tell you, so don't say any more about it."

But before Vane could grasp the woman's intention, she had snatched the
basket from his hand and borne it back to the table, upon which she
thumped it with so much vigour that several of the golden chalice-like
fungi leaped out.

"