“’Tis likely, too,” said George. And the two or three very aged laborers in smocks, and one other lubberly boy, who composed the rest of the circle, added, severally and collectively, “’Tis likely, too.”
But, as George beat his way home over the downs in the dusk, he said aloud, under cover of the roaring wind, and in all the security of the open country,—
“Vive pound! vive pound! And a offered me vive shilling for un. Master Lake, you be dog-ged cute; but Gearge bean’t quite such a vool as a looks.”
After a short time the advertisement was withdrawn.
CHAPTER VI.
GEORGE GOES COURTING.—GEORGE AS AN ENEMY.—GEORGE AS A FRIEND.—ABEL PLAYS SCHOOL-MASTER.—THE LOVE-LETTER.—MOERDYK.—THE MILLER-MOTH.—AN ANCIENT DITTY.
One day George Sannel asked and obtained leave for a holiday.
On the morning in question, he dressed himself in the cleanest of smocks, greased his boots, stuck a bloody warrior, or dark-colored wallflower, in his bosom, put a neatly folded, clean cotton handkerchief into his pocket,—which, even if he did not use it, was a piece of striking dandyism,—and scrubbed his honest face to such a point of cleanliness that Mrs. Lake was almost constrained to remark that she thought he must be going courting.
George did not blush,—he never blushed,—but he looked “voolish” enough to warrant the suspicion that his errand was a tender one, and he had no other reason to give for his spruce appearance.
It was, perhaps, in his confusion that he managed to convey a mistaken notion of the place to which he was going to Mrs. Lake. She was under the impression that he went to the neighboring town, whereas he went to one in an exactly opposite direction, and some miles farther away.