“They deserve to be taken up,” I said.
“Ay, they do, my boy; but folks don’t get all they deserve.”
“Or I should be punished for letting that boy steal the rope.”
“Hang the rope!” he said crustily. “I mean, hang the boy or his father, and that’s what some of ’em’ll come to,” he cried grimly, “if they don’t mind. They’re a bad lot down that court. Lor’ a mussy me! I’d sooner live in one of our sheds on some straw, with a sack for a pillow, than be shut up along o’ these folk in them courts.”
“But they wouldn’t have hurt me, Ike?” I said.
“I dunno, my lad. P’r’aps they would, p’r’aps they wouldn’t. They might have kept you and made a bad un of yer. Frightened you into it like.”
I shook my head.
“Ah! you don’t know, my lad. How much did they get?”
“Two shillings and ninepence halfpenny,” I said dolefully.
“And a nearly new rope. Ah, it’s a bad morning’s work for your first journey.”