"Powdered beef, I think, Sherry; and Polly put in a cate or two and some radishes, and a bottle of cider; plain fare, you see." "Well, hunger’s the best saace, I b’lieve. We poor folks don’t need to perk up our appetites. I warrant, now, that mighty lord we saw yesterday would turn up his nose at powdered beef. Fine kickshawses a’ had at Sir Godfrey’s, no doubt. To think o’ such a mighty lord, the Queen’s purse-bearer an’ all, bein’ kept in a little small village by rust or dry-rot, just like a ordinary man! Old Squire would ha’ liked to gi’ him a bed, I reckon; but Sir Godfrey were aforehand, an’ there he lies till this mornen: axle was to be mended by six, if Lumpy had to work all night to finish the job. Med I axe ’ee a question, Master Harry? Do ’ee think that shinen piece a’ flung to feyther were his own, or out o’ Queen’s purse?" Harry laughed. "Lord Godolphin doesn’t go about the country with the Queen’s purse slung at his waist, Sherry. What he meant was that he was Lord Treasurer, the Queen’s chief minister, the man who rules the country, you know." "Well, now, if I didn’t think it’d be folly to carry the Queen’s purse loose about the country! Then ’tis Lord Godolphin says we’re to fight the French?" "Yes, he and my lord Marlborough between them." "Ah! there ’tis. My lord Marlborough bean’t free with his money like t’other lord. _He_ wouldn’t ha’ given old feyther o’ mine nothen. Why, I was at Salisbury in ’88 when my lord—Lord Churchill he was then, to be sure—was there to meet King Willum, and I held his horse for ’n, and he gi’ me—what do ’ee think he gi’ me, Master Harry?" "Well?" "Nowt but a smile! What med ’ee think o’ that for a lord? ’Thank ’ee, my man,’ says he, and puts his foot in the stirrup and shows his teeth at me, and rides off! Lord! Now t’other one, the Lord Godolphin, he is a lord, to be sure, a fine free-handed gentleman, though he ha’n’t got such fine teeth. I like a lord to be a lord, I do." "My lord Marlborough is indeed rather close-fisted, they say."