“No matter now. What do you want for your interest in this boy?”
“The passage-money, eight pounds.”
“But you have a percentage for your labor, and you were at expense keeping him at a public house, and after he was lame had to carry him in a wagon.”
“My usual fees and the expenses would be about ten dollars. I will make him over to you (as he is a boy and has about everything to learn before he can be of much use) for four years for eight pounds. And if at the end of a year you are dissatisfied, you may pay me the ten dollars, and I will take him off your hands and agree in writing to pay you back the eight pounds, in order that you may see that I do not want to put the boy on you, just to be rid of him.
“I will take him, and if he runs away, let him run; I shall not follow him.”
“Run?” said the miller; “when you have had him a fortnight, you could not set dogs enough on him to drive him off.”
“I shall not take him but with his free consent, and not till the matter is fully explained to him, Mr. Wilson.”
“Explained, you can’t explain it to him; why he’s as ignorant as one of your oxen.”
“So much the more necessary that the attempt should be made. I never will buy a fellow-creature as I would buy a “shote” out of a drove.”
“You are not buying, you are hiring him.”