"There, get in, lads--make no more ado," said Abel Fletcher, sharply,
as he disappeared.

So, still holding my David fast, I brought him into my father's
house.



CHAPTER II

Dinner was over; my father and I took ours in the large parlour,
where the stiff, high-backed chairs eyed one another in opposite rows
across the wide oaken floor, shiny and hard as marble, and slippery
as glass. Except the table, the sideboard and the cuckoo clock,
there was no other furniture.

I dared not bring the poor wandering lad into this, my father's
especial domain; but as soon as he was away in the tan-yard I sent
for John.

Jael brought him in; Jael, the only womankind we ever had about us,
and who, save to me when I happened to be very ill, certainly gave no
indication of her sex in its softness and tenderness. There had
evidently been wrath in the kitchen.

"Phineas, the lad ha' got his dinner, and you mustn't keep 'un long.
I bean't going to let you knock yourself up with looking after a
beggar-boy."

A beggar-boy! The idea seemed so ludicrous, that I could not help