"Will I help, man! Aye, that I will, with a good stomachWhy, if they shut up a dog that I cared for within those four stone walls, I would help him out!But that monk is a holy manand they think to frighten him as they thought to frighten me. Tom," added Turner, leaning through the aperture, and laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder, "I have never held up my head like a man since that night. To be set upon like a fox! To be dragged and hauled, and thrown into a prisonTom! (grasping the arm of the other with a force that made him shrink) when I think of this in the day when I am at work, I throw down the hammer, for my blood boils, and I could not strike a sure blow for hours after, if a king's ransom was offered me. But, by St. Nicholas! 'tis little work that Wat Turner has done ever sinceall has gone wrongbut I shall soon leave the parish altogetherand then, may be, things will go on better. For, here, if a man looks at me, it seems as if he would say, 'Turner, you have been in jail!' Tom Merritt, never boast or brag of anything!"
After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house. It was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and provided forthe old man knew that Backfield had made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. He must have drawn up his will in the spirit of maliceReuben could imagine him grinning away in his grave. "Well, Ben Backfield, I've justabout sold you nicely, haven't I?next to no capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who d?an't know the difference between a shilling and a soverun. You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your mistake. And you can't git even wud me where I am. He! He!""ThereI knew as there wur reason in you, Pete. You w?an't go and leave your f?ather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed Methody.""Sam," said Byles, "is not that a light in the cottage?"Every now and then the crowd would break into the latest rhymings of MacKinnon's poet:
