concluding that it was probably some poacher returning home from
his night's work I went on to the bathing place, resolved to give a
hint to Mr. Johnson.

Roger joined me presently, with a glum face.

"Oh, I say, Joe," he said, "this is deuced bad news. Father says
you are leaving us on Monday."

"Yes, I have been here long enough," I said.

"Of course, I didn't expect you to work here forever, but I did
think you would change your mind and remain friends with me."

"We shall always be friends, you and I, I hope," I said, "but it
will be on a different footing. I could not work here forever, as
you say: and if I mean to do anything in the world 'tis time I set
about it. Maybe five years hence I shall return, and you will not
be ashamed to own me for a friend."

"Ashamed! When was I ever ashamed? Why, we think a world of you,
father and mother and Lucy, too. When father told us last night,
they were sorry, yet glad, too, I own. Mother said she was sure you
would get on, and I know you will, but all the same I wish you were
not going. I say, tell me your real name, and if you have a bother
with your people I'll go and see them, I swear I will, and persuade
'em to forgive you."

How surprised he would have been, I thought, if I had told him that
the people whom I had not wronged, but who had done me wrong, were
relatives of his own! But I would not tell him, and when we had
finished our swim and were returning to the house, he declared that
he also would leave home; there was no fun in being a yeoman, he
said: and if a fellow like Dick Cludde could be an officer in the
king's navy, so could he--or in the army, and he would persuade his
father to let him go, by George he would! And he asked me to write
to him, so that he might know where to find me when his great plan
came to execution.

On Monday morning at half-past seven, after a good breakfast, I was
at the gate, girt and equipped for my journey. The poachers'
garments had, of course, long been discarded, and I was clad in the
suit of serviceable homespun obtained for me from Bridgenorth in
the first days of my service, and now but little the worse for
wear. All the family was at the gate to bid me farewell, even
Mistress Lucy, in her riding habit, for she was wont to go for an
hour's canter on fine mornings, before breakfast at half-past
eight. The adieux were said; all wished me well; Mr. Allardyce, as
a parting shot, said that I should always find a job