exton's wife, the same who had bound up his hand when he cut it at
harvest, even asked him to come in and help her boys in the evenings with
what they had to prepare for Mr. Cope. He was not sorry to do so
sometimes. The cottage was a slatternly sort of place, where he did not
feel ashamed of himself, and the Haywards were mild good sort of folks,
from whom he was sure never to hear either a bad or an unkind word;
though he did not care for them, nor feel refreshed and helped by being
with them as he did with the Kings.

John Farden, too, was good-natured to him, and once or twice hindered
Boldre from striking or abusing him; he offered him a pipe once, but Paul
could not smoke, and another time brought him out a pint of beer into the
field. Mrs. Shepherd spied him drinking it from her upper window, and
believed all the more that he got money somehow, and spent it in drink.

So the time wore on till the Confirmation, all seeming like one dull
heavy dream of bondage; and as the weather became colder, the poor boy
seemed to have no power of thinking of anything, but of so getting
through his work as to avoid violence, to keep himself from perishing
with cold, and not to hurt his chilblains more than he could help.

All his quick intellect and good instruction seemed to have perished
away, and the last time he went to Mr. Cope's, he sat as if he were
stupid or asleep, and when a question came to him, sat with his mouth
open like silly Bill Pridden.

Mr. Cope knew him too well not to feel, as he wrote the ticket, that
there were very few of whom he could so entirely from his heart say
'Examined and APPROVED,' as the poor lonely outcast foundling, Paul
Blackthorn, who could not even tell whether he were fifteen, sixteen, or
seventeen, but could just make sure that he had once been caned by old
Mr. Haynes, who went away from the Union twelve years ago.

'Do you think you can keep the ticket safe if I give it you now, Paul?'
asked Mr. Cope, recollecting that the cows might sup upon it like his
Prayer-book.

Paul put his hands down to the bottom of his pockets. They were all one
hole, and that sad lost foolish look came over his wan face again, and
startled Mr. Cope.

The boys grinned, but Charles Hayward stepped forward. 'Please, Sir, let
me take care of it for him.'

Mr. Cope and Paul both agreed, and Mr. Cope kept Charles for a moment to
say, as he gave him a shilling, 'Look here, Charles, do you think you can