odness, and duty to their neighbours!'

'Sure enough, my lord; but by our folk, I mean ourselves, not the men
nor women neither--'

'That will do, John. Go thy way. Not men, nor women neither, are better
than they need be.'

I wished to set this matter right; but his worship would not hear me,
and only drove me out of court, saying that men were thieves and liars,
no more in one place than another, but all alike all over the world,
and women not far behind them. It was not for me to dispute this point
(though I was not yet persuaded of it), both because my lord was a
Judge, and must know more about it, and also that being a man myself I
might seem to be defending myself in an unbecoming manner. Therefore I
made a low bow, and went; in doubt as to which had the right of it.

But though he had so far dismissed me, I was not yet quite free to
go, inasmuch as I had not money enough to take me all the way to Oare,
unless indeed I should go afoot, and beg my sustenance by the way, which
seemed to be below me. Therefore I got my few clothes packed, and my few
debts paid, all ready to start in half an hour, if only they would give
me enough to set out upon the road with. For I doubted not, being young
and strong, that I could walk from London to Oare in ten days or in
twelve at most, which was not much longer than horse-work; only I had
been a fool, as you will say when you hear it. For after receiving from
Master Spank the amount of the bill which I had delivered--less indeed
by fifty shillings than the money my mother had given me, for I had
spent fifty shillings, and more, in seeing the town and treating people,
which I could not charge to His Majesty--I had first paid all my debts
thereout, which were not very many, and then supposing myself to be an
established creditor of the Treasury for my coming needs, and already
scenting the country air, and foreseeing the joy of my mother, what had
I done but spent half my balance, ay and more than three-quarters of it,
upon presents for mother, and Annie, and Lizzie, John Fry, and his wife,
and Betty Muxworthy, Bill Dadds, Jim Slocombe, and, in a word, half of
the rest of the people at Oare, including all the Snowe family, who must
have things good and handsome? And if I must while I am about it, hide
nothing from those who read me, I had actually bought for Lorna a thing
the price of which quite frightened me, till the shopkeeper said it was
nothing at all, and that no young ma