"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?""His life is spared till after the conference," said the treasurer; "his freedom depends upon the disbanding of the Essex men."
ONE:This would have been bad enough in any year, but in times when he bore the burden of his yet profitless milk-round it was only a little short of catastrophe. Making every allowance for a first year, that milk-round had[Pg 265] disappointed him. He found private custom hard to win, and even the ceasing of French dairy supplies, owing to the Franco-Prussian war, did not bring him the relief he had hoped. One or two small farms on the borders of Rye catered in dairy stuff for its inhabitants, and he found them hard to outbid or outwit. Also, owing to the scarcity of grass feed, it was a bad milk year, and poor supplies were put down by consumers to the new milkman, and in more than one case custom was withdrawn.
ONE:The individual first summoned from among the group, was a tall athletic young man of about twenty-five, with a complexion fair but reddened through exposure to the seasons. His hair was light-brown, thick and curly, and there was a good-humoured expression in the clear grey eyes, and in the full, broad, well marked countenance, that would give one the idea of a gay, thoughtless spirithad it not been for the bold and firm step, and the sudden change of feature from gay to grave as he advanced to the platform, and met unabashed the Baron's scrutiny, at once indicating that the man possessed courage and decision when occasion required these qualities to be called into action.
TWO:"As long as there's men and women in the world, the men 'ull be top and the women bottom."
