idgenorth, or they would find folk astir. They
looked at me with some hesitation; then Job said:

"We're a-going to make you fast, my bawcock, and don't make no
mistake. Ads bobs, if ye come to Bridgenorth Fair we'll find some
'un to down you, strike me if we don't."

They bound my legs and arms with withes that are used for tying
trusses of hay, and left me.

I felt some natural satisfaction in the issue of this fight; but it
made poor amends for the loss of my clothes and my guineas. Luckily
my knapsack, hidden in the hay, had escaped the poachers'
observation; and the recovery of Dick Cludde's crown piece gave me
a good deal of pleasure.

The moment the poachers were gone, I began to try to free myself
from my bonds, but it was only after much painful wriggling and
straining that I at length released my hands. My clasp knife had
departed with my breeches; Bill's pockets were empty; but after
some search, crawling about the barn, I discovered a broken slate
wherewith to cut the fastenings of my feet. And then, when I stood
upright, and with leisure for thought became fully aware of the
sorry figure I cut, in foul garments a world too small for me, I
was nigh overwhelmed with a feeling of despair, and was almost
ready to wait until nightfall, and slink back by byways to
Shrewsbury. But after a while I got the better of this heartsickness,
and, rating myself for a poltroon, I strapped on my knapsack and
issued forth from the barn, doggedly resolved to pursue my journey.

It was many an hour since I had eaten, and, once more in the open
air, my stomach cried out for breakfast. When a man has never had
to want for food, it is with a disagreeable shock he realizes that
he must be hungry. True, I had the crown piece, and before the sun
had mounted I was sore tempted to spend it; but the vow I had
inwardly made to keep it for its owner, together with a shame-faced
reluctance to appear in my present condition before a fellow man,
helped me for a time to bear my hunger. Yet I knew that I could not
go long without food, and it would soon become imperative that I
should pocket my pride and either change the crown or seek some
means of earning enough to buy myself a meal.

For a time I trudged through the fields, avoiding the public eye.
Coming at length to a road, which I took to be the highroad, I set
off along it, stiffening my resolution to ask for a job at the
first village I reached. But just as a row of cottages ca