t this trifle," he walked briskly off.

The tinker looked long at the crown-piece, and then sliding it into his
pocket, said to himself--

"Ho--'ush-money! No go, my swell cove."

After venting that brief soliloquy he sat silent a little while, till
Leonard was nearly out of sight, then rose, resumed his fardel, and,
creeping quick along the hedgerows, followed Leonard toward the town.
Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard
accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That
gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the
path, and straight toward the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the
hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold
front on it, and stepped forth like a man. But, alas for him! before he
got into the public path, the proprietor of the land, Mr. Richard Avenel
(for the gentleman was no less a personage), had spied out the
trespasser, and called to him with a "Hillo, fellow," that bespoke all
the dignity of a man who owns acres, and all the wrath of a man who
beholds those acres impudently invaded.

The tinker stopped, and Mr. Avenel stalked up to him.

"What the devil are you doing on my property, lurking by my hedge? I
suspect you are an incendiary!"

"I be a tinker," quoth Mr. Sprott, not louting low (for a sturdy
republican was Mr. Sprott), but like a lord of humankind,

"Pride in his port, defiance in his eye."

Mr. Avenel's fingers itched to knock the tinker's villainous hat off
his Jacobinical head, but he repressed the undignified impulse by
thrusting both hands deep into his trowsers' pockets.

"A tinker!" he cried--"that's a vagrant, and I'm a magistrate, and I've
a great mind to send you to the treadmill--that I have. What do you do
here, I say? You have not answered my question?"

"What does I do 'ere?" said Mr. Sprott. "Vy, you had better ax my
crakter of the young gent I saw you talking with just now; he knows me!"

"What! my nephew know you?"

"W--hew," whistled the tinker, "your nephew is it, sir? I have a great
respek for your family. I've knowed Mrs. Fairfilt, the vasher-voman,
this many a year. I 'umbly ax your pardon." And he took off his hat this
time.

Mr. Avenel turned red and white in a breath. He growled out something
inaudible, turned on his heel, and strode off. The tinker watched him as
he had watched Leonard, and then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the
nephew.