“Sound in wind and limb, I should judge,” he concluded, “but his age is against him. A lad should go into a mill young, Master, before his bones are set and his fingers stiff, if he’s to be any good. I’m not in your Union or I would have seen to this. The Guardians have no business to keep a big lumbering lout of a lad lazying about the House and eating his head off. It’s demoralising to the lad and is enough to pauperize a whole neighbourhood. What’s his name?”
“Pinder sir, Tom Pinder,” answered the Master, and, whilst Tom stared with all his eyes on the stranger, wondering vastly who he might be and what this interview might portend and wondering too if Workhouse Jack would remember to feed his rabbit and find a fresh sod of grass for his lark, the Master made apology for Tom’s height and girth.
“You see, Mr. Tinker, Pinder’s been kept longer than usual. There’s a sort of mystery about him, and both the Chairman and Mr. Black have taken uncommon interest in him. Indeed the Schoolmaster’s so wrapt up in him he couldn’t have been more if th’ lad had been his own son, which I’d almost think he was myself if it wasn’t so ridiculous. But there’s never no telling, is there, Mr. Tinker? these quiet uns is often as deep an’ dark as a pit, bu’ we’re all human, eh?” And Master winked a wink meant to be a summary of profound knowledge of the universal fallibility of the human race.
But Mr. Tinker was not a man to be winked at or joked with, nor apparently was he disposed to discuss the tempting topic of man’s—and woman’s—depravity—with a Workhouse Master, the sole audience a Workhouse foundling.
“Pinder,”—he said musingly, strumming meditatively on the table, and somewhat brusquely declining the Master’s hospitable offer to have in another jug of October ale, or something shorter if a cordial for the stomach would be more acceptable.—“Pinder—Tom Pinder? it isn’t a this country name. There was a Pinder at Marsden, a clothier in a small way—took to drink, banked, and showed his creditors a clean pair of heels; but you wouldn’t have a Marsden brat in this Union.”
“But he wasn’t called after his father,” said the Master, somewhat curtly, for if Jabez Tinker could be curt, curt too could the Master be, and any way, he was sovereign there except on Guardian days. “Damme, I can crow on my own dunghill,” he thought, “or I’m th’ poorest cock ever crowed this side of Stanedge.”
“Oh! I forgot, Mr. Redfearn said something about his being a bastard, a chance child—a rambling tale. I didn’t mind it, I was thinking about something else. ’Twill be his mother’s name?”
“No, nor his mother’s,” said the Master. “I don’t rightly know who he was called after. It had something to do with Mr. Redfearn’s shepherd. But it’s a long time since, and I forget. But what’s the odds? There th’ lad is. You can either take him or leave him, it’s all a price to me, and I reckon to th’ Guardians too.”
“When can he come?”
“Next week. There’ll be th’ papers to make out. Th’ overseers will sign th’ indentire. Five pounds they’ve to pay, I think t’was settled.”