He had no occupation and very little money. His idleness was involuntary. He could nowhere find a situation that was suitable. He was young, inexperienced, and with a very limited range of acquaintance. Beer was a hamlet, Seaton and Axmouth small villages. Of towns he knew nothing, with town dwellers he had no connections. His education had disqualified him for any such place as was available near at hand, and far afield he had no one to point the way to a situation. Inexperienced as he was, he was lost. He was impatient to earn his livelihood, but powerless to find a place in which he could earn it.
The sole offer he had made to him was one he could not accept. This was from the chief officer of the Preventive Service. He could not take this lest it should arouse alarm and resentment in the men of Beer, who would suspect him of entering the Service to betray what he already knew of their secrets.
His impatience to do something, and his inability to find anything to do, became so distressing that he lost his cheerfulness, became moody and silent. He had been to Lyme, where he had endeavoured to obtain a place in a lawyer's office, but the vacancy was filled. He tried a bank, no clerk was needed. He visited Colyton, he went to Axminster, to Honiton, but found no vacancy anywhere. Business was stagnant, trade depressed; clerks of some standing were receiving their discharge, no young hands were being taken on.
Meantime his small supply of money was ebbing away, in another week his purse would be wholly drained. If he could not find the employment that was suited to him, he must look out for some to which he must suit himself.
The condition of inaction became intolerable, and his discouragement acute. Better anything than nothing, he said to himself, and he resolved to take any work that he could get.
When he had formed this resolution, he went to the nearest farmhouse, that of Mr. Moses Nethersole, and knocked at the door.
'Come in!'
He entered, and said to Mrs. Nethersole, who alone was there, 'I beg your pardon, I would speak with the master.'
'Take a seat, Jack. You may speak out to me. Moses and I are one.'
He was a good-looking lad, and whatever were their ages, the women looked on him with a favourable eye.