"Who said he was green?" he muttered, allowing Job to help him on with his coat.
"He's a viper," said Job consolingly. "We won't tell no one, Topper."
It was light by this time, and Bill remarked that they had best be getting back to Bridgenorth, or they would find folk astir. They looked at me with some hesitation; then Job said:
"We're a-going to make you fast, my bawcock, and don't make no mistake. Ads bobs, if ye come to Bridgenorth Fair we'll find some 'un to down you, strike me if we don't."
They bound my legs and arms with withes that are used for tying trusses of hay, and left me.
I felt some natural satisfaction in the issue of this fight; but it made poor amends for the loss of my clothes and my guineas. Luckily my knapsack, hidden in the hay, had escaped the poachers' observation; and the recovery of Dick Cludde's crown piece gave me a good deal of pleasure.
The moment the poachers were gone, I began to try to free myself from my bonds, but it was only after much painful wriggling and straining that I at length released my hands. My clasp knife had departed with my breeches; Bill's pockets were empty; but after some search, crawling about the barn, I discovered a broken slate wherewith to cut the fastenings of my feet. And then, when I stood upright, and with leisure for thought became fully aware of the sorry figure I cut, in foul garments a world too small for me, I was nigh overwhelmed with a feeling of despair, and was almost ready to wait until nightfall, and slink back by byways to Shrewsbury. But after a while I got the better of this heartsickness, and, rating myself for a poltroon, I strapped on my knapsack and issued forth from the barn, doggedly resolved to pursue my journey.
It was many an hour since I had eaten, and, once more in the open air, my stomach cried out for breakfast. When a man has never had to want for food, it is with a disagreeable shock he realizes that he must be hungry. True, I had the crown piece, and before the sun had mounted I was sore tempted to spend it; but the vow I had inwardly made to keep it for its owner, together with a shame-faced reluctance to appear in my present condition before a fellow man, helped me for a time to bear my hunger. Yet I knew that I could not go long without food, and it would soon become imperative that I should pocket my pride and either change the crown or seek some means of earning enough to buy myself a meal.
For a time I trudged through the fields, avoiding the public eye. Coming at length to a road, which I took to be the highroad, I set off along it, stiffening my resolution to ask for a job at the first village I reached. But just as a row of cottages came in sight, and I was considering in what terms to make my request, a parson and a lady on horseback turned into the road from a by-lane, and when they had passed I heard a ripple of laughter from the lady, no doubt in response to some jest from her companion on my ridiculous appearance.
This set my blood a-boiling; I flung away in a rage, leapt a stile into a field, and felt that I would rather starve than ask assistance of a living soul. I sat down beneath a hedge, utterly woebegone, and chewed the bitter cud of my misfortunes until for sheer weariness I fell asleep.