“Nay, sir—leastways—I can’t afford to take a hand for nothin’. ’Tisn’t in rayson. But—”
He broke off, quailing beneath the farmer’s gaze, now mildly enquiring.
“The missus—my wold ’ooman, be terr’ble upset,” he went on, “and there’s rent-day to think on, and—’tis a bad job for I to be out o’ work jist now, measter.”
“’Tis a pity ye didn’t think o’ that afore,” said Mr Old. “I d’ ’low ye’ll be a bit wiser in your next place.”
“I don’t know when I’ll have another place, sir,” said Jess, babyish tears springing to his eyes. “There, I can’t get nobody to take I on—’tis a terr’ble bad look-out for I.”
“’Tis, ’tis indeed,” agreed the other heartily.
“I were thinkin’, Measter Old, maybe ye’d overlook the past, an’ take I back. Ye wouldn’t ha’ no fault to find wi’ I again. I’d serve ye so faithful as ever I did, an’ I’d—I’d never say nothin’, nor ax for nothin’.”
He stopped with a kind of gasp. Old turned his rake upside down and thoughtfully investigated a splintered tooth.
“Well, ’tis this way, ye see,” he said, after a moment’s meditation. “I did say I were a-goin’ to make an example o’ you. I did say it to myself an’ I did say it to the men; an’ I b’ain’t a man what likes to go back on his word.”
Jess looked at him piteously, his round ruddy face almost convulsed with anxiety. Farmer Old, who was a good-natured man, could not withstand its pathetic appeal.