mbered over the
sill, and stood in my room.

"How did you get up, Joe?" I asked in a whisper.

"Got a ladder from the rick yard, lad. I bin tapping for nigh half
an hour, I reckon. You be one of the seven sleepers, for sure."

"But what do you want, Joe? You can't stay here, you know."

"Nor don't want to. I be come to tell you, lad, I be going away."

"Going away, Joe?"

"Yes. No one knows it but you, and I wouldn't ha' telled you only
the old mother will be in a rare taking when she finds me gone, and
I want you to tell her as I've come to no harm."

"But why, Joe?"

"Vetch--that's why. 'Tis no place for me now, lad. He bin cursing
and swearing he'll send me to the plantations for that business
with the barrel, and he'll keep his word. And so I be going to run
for it."

"But where, Joe? And what about your 'dentures?"

"That's where it is: my 'dentures must go too. If I be catched,
there's a flogging and prison for that. But I don't mean to be
catched. Before the sun's up I'll be on my way to Bristowe."

"That's ever so far."

"So 'tis, but not further than a pair of legs can walk."

"And will you get a place with a cooper there?"

"No, no; no more coopering for me; I be done with barrels for good
and all. I be going to sea."

"To sea! What ever made you think of such a thing?"

"One thing and another. And I won't be the first, not even from
such an upland place as Shrewsbury. Why, haven't we heard Mistress
Hind tell time and again how her brother John Benbow ran away to
sea nigh upon thirty years ago?"

"True, and so did Sam Blevins, and hasn't been heard of since,
Joe."

"Well, if Vetch ships me to the plantations you may be sure no more
will be heard of Joe Punchard, so 'tis as broad as 'tis long."

"'Tis all my fault, Joe. If I hadn't run into the shop this
wouldn't have happened, and you'd have worked out your 'dentures,
and maybe risen to be a partner with Mr. Mark. I wish I had let
them catch me, Joe, I do."

"Now don't you take on, Master Humphrey. As for partners, I be sick
of making barrels for other folks' beer, that's the truth, and by
what I've heard there's riches to be picked up in the Indies, and
many a sea captain is a deal better off than Matthew Mark. And I'm
set on trying it, lad, the more so as, by long and short, I dursn't
stay in Shrewsbury no longer. So you'll be so good as go and see
the old mother tomorrow, and tell her I be gone to sea, and I'll
send her home silk