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It was with high good-humour that the pair sat down to the deal table, and proceeded to fall-to on the pork pie. Morris retailed the discovery of the lid, and the Great Vance was pleased to applaud by beating on the table with his fork in true music-hall style. "That's the dodge," he cried. "I always said a water-butt was what you wanted for this business."
While they were speaking, Tobias Platt had placed a smoking hot dish before the hungry traveller, on which the Colonel bade him fall-to. Scarcely, however, had he commenced operations, when young Roger hurried into the hall. "We have brought him, uncle; he was very willing to come, and you will like him as much as we do. I ran on to announce him, and he and Stephen will be here anon."
"It could not have been becoming even when new, and you appear as though you had taken a muddy road since then. What did you die of?" "I will tell you so much as this, madam that what I am like to die of now is hunger, plain, unvarnished hunger, so, in Heaven's name, get out what you have and let me fall-to, for my last meal was yesterday morning."
"Why, Pierre," I exclaimed laughing, "you must have laid your larder bare!" "All the larders in the village would be laid bare for monsieur's use," replied the old man, and I believed him. "Come Jacques," I said, "sit down and fall-to; the ride to-day must have put an edge on your appetite!" for we had eaten nothing since the early morning.
Never did the master have occasion to find fault with the servant for pilfering the grapes, nor for the plums and nectarines eaten under the trees. "Come, fall-to, Nanon!" he would say in years when the branches bent under the fruit and the farmers were obliged to give it to the pigs.
This Relation given by the affrighted Gentlewoman was only laughed at and ridiculed as the Effect of Spleen-Vapours, or the Frenzy of a deluded Imagination, and was thought no more of, till one Night, when the Earl of Kilmarnock, sitting round a Bowl by the Winter Fire with my Lord Galloway, and it is at such a Time that men are most prone to fall-to telling of Ghost Stories, and their Lordships' conversation turning on Spectres and Apparitions, the vulgar notions of which they were deriding, the terrible tale of the Bloody Head was brought up, and then dismissed as the idle fancy of a Hoity-toity Tirewoman.
But saddest to see was between two bars, where a fog was of rushes, and flood-wood, and wild-celery haulm, and dead crowsfoot, who but our venerable mallard jammed in by the joint of his shoulder, speaking aloud as he rose and fell, with his top-knot full of water, unable to comprehend it, with his tail washed far away from him, but often compelled to be silent, being ducked very harshly against his will by the choking fall-to of the hurdle.
"Aye, 'tis well to have a friend at court when need arises." "I labored hard," said the old gentleman, "to secure your freedom, but these bloody-minded Inquisitors are without bowels of mercy, and ye are fortunate to have escaped death or torture. But now I have brought you a little matter of wine and fruit, so fall-to and refresh yourselves, and after that we will talk of what is to come."
It may be weakness perhaps, but " "Being the weakness of an old salt," interrupted Christian, "it's excusable. Now, boys, fall-to with a will. We've got plenty of work before us, an' can't afford to waste time." This exhortation was needless. The savoury smell of the roast pig, when it had been carefully disentombed, might have given appetite to a seasick man.
Now, knowing all this I was not astonished that they shouted at the thought of their fellows the men of Essex, but rather that they said little more about it; only Will Green saying quietly, "Well, the tidings shall be told when our fellowship is greater; fall-to now on the meat, brother, that we may the sooner have thy tale."
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