little flaxen-haired, curly-headed namesake and grandson climb his knee, ride round the room on his walking-stick, and come and look up in his face with a laughing archness that made him forget his least remaining touch of sadness. Betty Trapps was once more herself again. Betty had been dreadfully tried by the suspicion cast on her master. That anybody should dare to think of such a thing of such a man as Mr. Woodburn—to even him down to common thieves and murderers—it was little short of blasphemy! “Such men,” she said, “would spit at the sun, and showed what was in their own nasty stomachs. As for that Hopcraft, to be concerned in murdering a gentleman, and throwing the blame on a man like Mr. Woodburn, she’d have him hanged out and out.” “But,” said Sylvanus Crook one day, “Betty, if we expect mercy ourselves, we must be willing to wish mercy to others.” “Mercy to Hopcraft!” said Betty; “a dirty grub him!—ay, as much mercy I’d give him, if I were judge and jury, as a gardener has on a snail—as a miller on a rat that charms[1] his flour-sacks, or a farmer on a mowdy-warp[2] in his best meadows—as a miser on a thief or a pickpocket, or a country squire on a fox on hunting day—as a cat on a mouse, though she plays with it awhile, as the squire does with the fox. Mercy!—ay, faith, shark’s mercy—hawk’s mercy—leech’s mercy—fire’s mercy, when it gets the mester on us—watter’s mercy, when a man’s drowning—lawyer’s mercy—creditor’s mercy—death’s mercy! Oh! I’d give him mercy enough, I warrant ye, Mester Crook.” “But,” said Sylvanus, “thou shouldst make allowances for Nathan Hopcraft; he is but a poor, ignorant, stupid sort of creature.” “Stupid!” said Betty; “he stuffs himself till he is stupid. He’s no better than one of his own hogs, as used to be. Why, I’ve seen that man half empty the dish of beans and bacon, at dinner set before the hungry men, on to his own plate, and pitch it down his throat like pitching straw through the picking-hole o’ th’ barn. An’ then when I’ve said I’m afraid you men will run short, the owd porpoise would sit and blow and look as red as a lobster, and as stupid as a fish, and say, ‘Nobody wants any more, for I don’t.’ Odrot him! Hang all such, I say.” “Oh, Betty, Betty!” said Sylvanus; “I am afraid thou art not much better than Sir Roger Rockville. The other day, Tom Baggully was taken before him on a charge of being drunk. ‘Set Baggully in the stocks,’ said Sir Roger, without waiting to hear anything at all. ‘But,’ said the clerk, ‘here are several respectable people ready to swear that he was not drunk.’ ‘No matter,’ said Sir Roger, ‘I fancy he poaches; so, right or wrong, set Baggully in the stocks.’” “Thank you, Sylvanus, for your compliment,” said Betty.