148 Turnaside Cottage.

 

out the worstest and troublesomest boy in the parish,
and give him to her look after, and she'll think she
have got me still. And I’m going to send them
home money too—a heap on’t! I’m going to make
them so comfor’ble as never was.” Here something
or other got in the way and choked Tommy’s voice,
and he rose up and threw two or three ducks-and-
drakes with more vigour than success. When he
spoke again, it was on a different subject.

“There’s growed you are, Reuben!” he ex-
claimed, surveying me as I lay before him, grand
in my Sunday suit that had lately belonged to
Master George. “Why, only plim you out a bit,
and get some red in your cheeks, and they will take
you for a soldier yet, I knows they will Not you
stop here schoolmasterin’; tell you the gentlemen
as you are very much obliged, and you will thank
them to get you a first-rate kit, and put you in a
first-rate regiment—that’s mine, leastways the one
I’m going to belong to—and then come you on
with me.”

“You are a good fellow, Tommy,” said I, “ but
it would not do. You and I were not meant for
the same sort of work, and we had best each keep
to what we are fitted for. Go you and defend the
country, and keep order, and fight our enemies, if
need be; and I will stop here and rear up stout