“Come, then,” said Jem, “come with me now.”
“Not now,” said the lady, laughing; “but I will come to Ashton to-morrow evening; perhaps your mother can find me a few strawberries.”
“That she will,” said Jem: “I’ll search the garden myself.”
He now went home, but felt it a great restraint to wait till to-morrow evening before he told his mother. To console himself he flew to the stable:—“Lightfoot, you’re not to be sold on Monday, poor fellow!” said he, patting him, and then could not refrain from counting out his money. Whilst he was intent upon this, Jem was startled by a noise at the door: somebody was trying to pull up the latch. It opened, and there came in Lazy Lawrence, with a boy in a red jacket, who had a cock under his arm. They started when they got into the middle of the stable, and when they saw Jem, who had been at first hidden by the horse.
“We—we—we came,” stammered Lazy Lawrence—“I mean, I came to—to—to—”
“To ask you,” continued the stable-boy, in a bold tone, “whether you will go with us to the cock-fight on Monday? See, I’ve a fine cock here, and Lawrence told me you were a great friend of his; so I came.”
Lawrence now attempted to say something in praise of the pleasures of cock-fighting and in recommendation of his new companion. But Jem looked at the stable-boy with dislike, and a sort of dread. Then turning his eyes upon the cock with a look of compassion, said, in a low voice, to Lawrence, “Shall you like to stand by and see its eyes pecked out?”
“I don’t know,” said Lawrence, “as to that; but they say a cockfight’s a fine sight, and it’s no more cruel in me to go than another; and a great many go, and I’ve nothing else to do, so I shall go.”
“But I have something else to do,” said Jem, laughing, “so I shall not go.”
“But,” continued Lawrence, “you know Monday is the great Bristol fair, and one must be merry then, of all the days in the year.”