He checked himself suddenly, and frightened me. I knew that John Fry's
way so well.

"And father, and father--oh, how is father?" I pushed the boys right and
left as I said it. "John, is father up in town! He always used to come
for me, and leave nobody else to do it."

"Vayther'll be at the crooked post, tother zide o' telling-house.* Her
coodn't lave 'ouze by raison of the Chirstmas bakkon comin' on, and zome
o' the cider welted."

* The "telling-houses" on the moor are rude cots where the
shepherds meet to "tell" their sheep at the end of the
pasturing season.


He looked at the nag's ears as he said it; and, being up to John Fry's
ways, I knew that it was a lie. And my heart fell like a lump of lead,
and I leaned back on the stay of the gate, and longed no more to fight
anybody. A sort of dull power hung over me, like the cloud of a brooding
tempest, and I feared to be told anything. I did not even care to stroke
the nose of my pony Peggy, although she pushed it in through the rails,
where a square of broader lattice is, and sniffed at me, and began to
crop gently after my fingers. But whatever lives or dies, business must
be attended to; and the principal business of good Christians is, beyond
all controversy, to fight with one another.

"Come up, Jack," said one of the boys, lifting me under the chin; "he
hit you, and you hit him, you know."