he told him he had got some pretty easy work for
him. Dick did as he was bid; he willingly went to work, and readily
began to plant his beans with dispatch and regularity according to
the directions given him.

While the boy was busily at work by himself, Giles happened to come
by, having been skulking round the back way to look over the
parson's garden wall, to see if there was any thing worth climbing
over for on the ensuing night. He spied Dick, and began to scold him
for working for the stingy old parson, for Giles had a natural
antipathy to whatever belonged to the church. "What has he promised
thee a day?" said he; "little enough, I dare say." "He is not to pay
me by the day," said Dick, "but says he will give me so much when I
have planted this peck, and so much for the next." "Oh, oh! that
alters the case," said Giles. "One may, indeed, get a trifle by this
sort of work. I hate your regular day-jobs, where one can't well
avoid doing one's work for one's money. Come, give me a handful of
beans, I will teach thee how to plant when thou art paid for
planting by the peck. All we have to do in that case is to dispatch
the work as fast as we can, and get rid of the beans with all speed;
and as to the seed coming up or not, that is no business of ours; we
are paid for planting, not for growing. At the rate thou goest on
thou wouldst not get six-pence to night. Come along, bury away." So
saying he took his hatful of the seed, and where Dick had been
ordered to set one bean, Giles buried a dozen; of course the beans
were soon out. But though the peck was emptied, the ground was
unplanted. But cunning Giles knew this could not be found out till
the time when the beans might be expected to come up, "and then,
Dick," says he "the snails and the mice may go shares in the blame,
or we can lay the fault on the rooks or the black-birds." So saying,
he sent the boy into the parsonage to receive his pay, taking care
to secure about a quarter of the peck of beans for his own colt. He
put both bag and beans into his own pocket to carry home, bidding
Dick tell Mr. Wilson that he had planted the beans and lost the bag.

In the meantime Giles's other boys were busy in emptying the ponds
and trout-streams in the neighboring manor. They would steal away
the carp and tench when they were no bigger than gudgeons. By this
untimely depredation they plundered the owner of his property,
without enriching themselves. But the pleasure of misc