Here the flicker of a smile crossed the gentleman’s face.

“They left me tied hand and foot, and when I released myself I was in such a taking at the scarecrow figure I must cut that I shunned the sight of men, and kept to the fields.  But I had not eaten since noon of the day of my misadventure, and, being desperately hungry, I entered your gate to beg a meal, purposing to pay for it by some service for you.”

“Hum!  What then of this crown piece which you confessed was yours?  Why need ye starve with that in your pocket?”

“To that, sir, I have no answer, save that I would not spend it till the last extremity.”

“Hum!  How old are you?”

“Somewhat past seventeen, sir.”

“Just the age of our Roger,” said the lady.

“And what’s your name?”

At this I hesitated.  I could not be more than thirty miles from Shrewsbury, and if I told my name perchance it might travel back, and I was in no mind to have my mischances retailed in the town.  The gentleman saw my hesitation.

“Well, well,” he said, “no matter for that.  You have run away, eh?”

“No, sir.  I have no relatives, and I came with full consent of my friends.”

“And what think you to do at Bristowe?  Have you friends there?”

“No, sir.  I purposed to find employment on a ship.”

“The old story!” quoth the gentleman with a grunt.  Then, with a shrewd look at me, he said:  “Contra mercator, novem jactantibus austris.”

“Militia est potior,” I said, capping his tag from Flaccus’ first satire, without reflecting whereto he was luring me.

“I knew it!” he cried, waving his pipe triumphantly at his wife.  “And you haven’t run away from school?”

“Indeed I have not, sir.  I left school some months ago.”

The lady smiled at his crestfallen look.  It was plain that, in talking over myself and my situation, he had declared with the positiveness which I found was part of his character, that I had fallen into some trouble at school and fled the consequences.

There was a brief silence; then he said: 

“You spoke of work.  What can you do?”

“Little enough, sir,” I replied.  “But I lived for some years on a farm, and could do something in that kind.”

Husband and wife glanced at each other, and the gentleman said: 

“Well, well, go downstairs now; presently I will send for you again.”

I went down, and found my way, by the back of the house, the door standing open, into the garden.  I had not taken more than half a dozen paces down the middle path when a big dog of the retriever kind came barking towards me.  Stooping down, I patted his head and tickled his ears, a thing which all animals love, and then went on, the dog trotting by my side in most friendly wise.

And at a turn of the walk I came without warning upon the girl who had interposed to save me from a thrashing and had then gone scornfully away, thinking me a liar.  The consciousness of my ridiculous appearance rushed upon me in a flood, and, having but small experience of womankind save as represented by Mistress Pennyquick and our maids, I must stand stock still, red to the roots of my hair.