That was the worst argument he could have devised.  My pride was up in arms now, in good sooth, and I said firmly: 

“With your leave, sir, I will earn what money I need.”

“Didst ever see such an obstinate youth?” said he testily, turning to his wife.  “Well, as you will.  I warrant you will soon sing another tune.  Go and see my steward, one of the men will take you to him, and tell him what you know of husbandry; ’tis no more, I warrant, than you have learned out of Vergil’s Georgics.

“Stay,” he added, as I turned to go, “we must have a name for you.  You can not be a mere cipher in my estate books.”

“Call me Joe, sir,” I said, he thinking me of my friend Punchard.

“Joseph in the house of bondage,” says he with a laugh, “Well, Joe it shall be.”

I was some paces towards the door when remembrance came to me.

“May I have my crown piece, sir?” I said, turning back.

“God bless the boy!  Here, take it; ’tis the same that jumped from your pocket.  And now I bethink me, those poachers’ tatters sit very ill on your long carcass.

“We must find something better suited to his frame, mistress.”

“We will have, a clothier from Bridgenorth,” said the lady.

“I trust you will be very happy with us the short while you stay, Joe,” she added with her gentle smile, and I went from the room with my heart very warm towards her.

Chapter 10:  The Shuttered Coach.

Thus I entered on a period which I look back upon, after fifty years, as one of the happiest in my life.  The steward, Mr. Johnson, an active, silent man, employed me alternately in practical work upon the estate—­felling trees, repairing fences, and so. forth—­and in keeping his books, for which latter duty my service with Mr. Vetch had in some sort fitted me.  For a week I saw nothing of my master, and caught but fugitive glimpses of the members of his family.  I suspected, and rightly, as it turned out, that he was deliberately keeping out of my way, but receiving careful reports of me from Mr. Johnson.

His name, I learned, was James Allardyce, and his rank was something above that of a yeoman.  He was choleric in temper and hasty in judgment, but the soul of kindness and generosity, and the servants loved him.  The boy I had felled was his only son, just home from the school at Rugby; and his niece, Mistress Lucy, as everyone called her, had but lately become a member of his household.  She was an orphan.  Her father had been a planter with large estates in Jamaica, and on his death she had been brought to England at his wish by an old nurse, and delivered into the care of her mother’s brother.  She had another uncle, it was said—­a squire, her father’s brother, who lived somewhat north of Shrewsbury.  ’Twas Susan who told me this; she was a chatterbox, and would have talked all day to me had I not discouraged her, and then she said I gave myself airs.