"Trick," said Joe. "Joke, did you say? It was ratherly past a joke to expect me to carry a load of broken stones all the way here, when there was plenty on the spot. I'm not such a fool as you've taken me for," said Joe. The jolly-jist took off his spectacles, and glowered at Joe without them. Then he put them on again, and glowered at Joe with them; and then he laughed, and asked Joe, if he thought there could be no difference in stones. "Why!" answered Joe, "you hardly have the face to tell me that one bag of stones isn't as good as another bag of stones; and surely to man you'll never be so conceited as to say that you can break stones better than old Abraham Atchisson, who breaks them for his bread, and breaks them all day long and every day."
With that the old man laughed again, and told Joe to sit down; and then he asked him what he thought made him take so much trouble seeking bits of stone on the fells, if he could get what he wanted on the road-side. "Well," Joe said, "if I must tell you the truth, I thought you were rather soft in the head; but it made no matter what I thought, so long as you paid me so well for going with you." As Joe said this, it came into his head that it was better to flatter a fool than to fight him; and after all, that there might be something in the old man liking stones of his own breaking better than those of other folks' breaking. We all think the most of what we have had a hand in ourselves, don't we Miss Sandal? It's nothing but natural. And as soon as this run, through Joe's head, he found himself getting middling sorry for the old man; and he said, "What will you give me to get you your own bits of stones back again?"
He cocked up his ears at that, and asked if his "speciments," as he called them, were safe. "Ay," said Joe, "they are safe enough. Nobody hereabout thinks a little lot of stones worth meddling with, so long as they don't lie in their road." With that the jolly-jist jumped up, and said Joe must have something to eat and drink. Then Joe thought to himself, "Come, come, we are getting back to our own menseful way again." But he would not stir a peg till he heard what he was to have for getting the stones again; for Joe knew he would never hear the last of it, if he came home empty-handed. They made it all right very soon, however; and the old man went up-stairs, and brought down the two leather bags, and gave them to Joe to carry, as if nothing had happened; and off they started, very like as they did before.
The Skeàl-Hill folk all gathered together about the door to look after them, as if they had been a show; but they neither of them minded for that, but walked away as thick as inkle-weavers till they got to the foot of our great meadow, where the stones were all lying just as Joe had turned them out of the bags, only rather grown over with grass. And as Joe picked them up one by one, and handed them to the old jolly-jist, it did Joe's heart good to see how pleased he looked. He wiped them on his coat-cuff, and wet them, and glowered at them through his spectacles, as if they were something good to eat, and he was very hungry; and then he packed them away into the bags till they were both chock full again.
Well, the bargain was, that Joe should carry them back to Skeàl-Hill; so back they put, the jolly-jist watching his bags all the way, as if they were full of golden guineas, and our Joe a thief. When they got there, he made Joe take them right into the parlor; and the first thing he did was to call for some red wax and a light, and he clapped a great splatch of a seal on either bag; and then he looked at Joe, and gave a little grunt of a laugh, and a smartish wag of the head, as much as to say, "Do it again, Joe, if you can." But after that he said, "Here, Joe, is five shillings for restoring my speciments, and here is another five shillings for showing me a speciment of human nature that I did not believe in until this day."[5]
"That is good," cried the squire, clapping his knee emphatically. "It was like the professor, and it was like Joe Bulteel. The story does them both credit. I am glad I heard it. Alice, fill our glasses again." Then he stood up, and looked around with a smile.
"God's blessing on this house, and on all beneath its roof-tree!
"Wife and children, a merry Christmas to you!
"Friends and serving hands, a merry Christmas to you!"