The particular grievance of this morning, however easy to explain, was somewhat difficult to comprehend, when twenty tongues were speaking at once—­and those, shrill and excited ones.  In vain Lionel assured them that if one, instead of all, would tell it, he should understand it sooner; that if their tone were subdued, instead of loud enough to be heard yonder at the brick-fields, it might be more desirable.  Excited women, suffering under what they deem a wrong, cannot be made quiet; you may as well try to put down a rising flood.  Lionel resigned himself to his fate, and listened; and at this stage of the affair a new feature of it struck his eye and surprised him.  Scarcely one of the women but bore in her hand some uncooked meat.  Such meat!  Lionel drew himself and his coat from too close proximity to it.  It was of varied hues, and walking away alive.  Upon plates, whole or broken, upon half-saucers, upon dust-pans, upon fire-shovels, held at the end of tongs, hooked on to a fork, spread out in a coal-box; anyhow so as to avoid contact with fingers, these dainty pieces were exhibited for inspection.

By what Lionel could gather, it appeared that this meat had been purchased on Saturday night at Peckaby’s shop.  The women had said then, one and all, that it was not good; and Mr. Peckaby had been regaled with various open conjectures, more plain than polite, as to the state of the animal from which it had been supplied.  Independent of the quality of the meat, it was none the better, even then, for having been kept.  The women scented this; but Peckaby, and Peckaby’s wife, who was always in the shop with her husband on a Saturday night, protested and vowed that their customers’ noses were mistaken; that the meat would be perfectly good and fresh on the Sunday, and on the Monday too, if they liked to keep it so long.  The women, somewhat doubtfully giving ear to the assurance, knowing that the alternative was that or none, bought the meat and took it home.  On Sunday morning they found the meat was—­anything you may imagine.  It was neither cookable nor eatable; and their anger against Peckaby was not diminished by a certain fact which oozed out to them; namely, that Peckaby himself did not cut his Sunday’s dinner off the meat in his shop, but sent to buy it of one of the Deerham butchers.  The general indignation was great; the men, deprived of their Sunday’s meat, joined in it; but nothing could be done until Monday morning.  Peckaby’s shop was always hermetically sealed on a Sunday.  Mr. Verner had been stringent in allowing no Sunday traffic on the estate.

Monday came.  The men went to their work as usual, leaving their wives to deal with the matter.  Behold them assembled with their meat, kept for the occasion in spite of its state, before the shop of Peckaby.  But of redress they could get none; Peckaby was deaf; and Lionel arrived to find hostilities commenced.  Such was the summary of the story.