“Why, cause I had made up my mind to marry the lass I loved best, and father the child sleeping at her breast, he slammed the door in my face, and refused to give me a shilling.”
“That’s rather hard for a father to do,” said the horseman, with a cunning glance. “And what do you intend to do with yourself to-night? You can’t sleep in the open air, it would freeze you alive. Why don’t you try to get a situation of some kind?”
“That’s what I want to do; but my clothes are so shabby I don’t like to call on any one I knows. I shall creep into the old man’s house, and sleep there to-night, somehow, when all is quiet; but for an hour or two I shall stay in yonder old barn beside the road.”
“Oh! it’s a very hard case,” said the stranger; “particularly when you are the only son, and the old man is rich.”
“Ha, stranger; but better times are coming, I hope.”
“I’m glad you think so. Well, good night. Here’s a piece of silver to help you along,” said the horseman, offering money to the seedy and needy farmer’s son.
“No thank you,” said Rambling Bob, with a look of offended pride. “I’m not come to begging yet. I am strong enough to work for my daily bread without charity from strangers.”
“What! so poor, and refuse money? Ha! ha! quite a stoic, I perceive. Well, Mr. Bertram, if you will not take money, I’ve another offer to make. I have taken a fancy to that heavy, knobby stick you carry. Will you sell it?”
“I don’t mind that,” said Bob.
A bargain was soon concluded; the bludgeon changed hands for a guinea, and the stranger went his way.