"'Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye'll excuse it,"
said Cain Ball, looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes
drenched in their own dew.
!Here's some cider for him -- that'll cure his throat,"
said Jan Coggan, lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out
the cork, and applying the hole to Cainy's mouth;
Joseph Poorgrass in the meantime beginning to think
apprehensively of the serious consequences that would
follow Cainy Ball's strangulation in his cough, and the
history of his Bath adventures dying with him.
"For my poor self, I always say "please God" afore
I do anything." said Joseph, in an unboastful voice; "and
so should you, Cain Ball. "'Tis a great safeguard, and
might perhaps save you from being choked to death
some day."
Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liber-
ality at the suffering Cain's circular mouth; half of it
running down the side of the flagon, and half of what
reached his mouth running down outside his throat,
and half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being
coughed and sneezed around the persons of the gathered
reapers in the form of a cider fog, which for a moment
hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.
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