e is short of hands just now, and the men are so set
up and grabbing, I don't know how farmers is to live.'

So Mrs. Shepherd went away grumbling, instead of being thankful for the
beautiful crop of hay, safely housed, before the thunder shower which had
saved the turnips from the fly.

Ellen might have doubted whether she had done right in helping to give
the boy a bad name, but just then in came the ostler from the Tankard
with some letters.

'Here!' he said, 'here's one from one of the gentlemen lodging here
fishing, to Cayenne. You'll please to see how much there is to pay.'

Ellen looked at her Postal Guide, but she was quite at a fault, and she
called up-stairs to Alfred to ask if he knew where she should look for
Cayenne. He was rather fond of maps, and knew a good deal of geography
for a boy of his age, but he knew nothing about this place, and she was
just thinking of sending back the letter, to ask the gentleman where it
was, when a voice said:

'Try Guiana, or else South America.'

She looked up, and there were Paul's dirty face and dirtier elbows,
leaning over the half-door of the shop.

'Why, how do you know?' she said, starting back.

'I learnt at school, Cayenne, capital of French Guiana.' Sure enough
Cayenne had Guiana to it in her list, and the price was found out.

But when this learned geographer advanced into the shop, and asked for a
loaf, what a hand and what a sleeve did he stretch out! Ellen scarcely
liked to touch his money, and felt all her disgust revive. But, for all
that, and for all her fear of Harold's running into mischief, what
business had she to set it about that the stranger was an escaped
convict?

Meanwhile, Alfred had plenty of food for dreaming over his fellow
sufferer. It really seemed to quiet him to think of another in the same
case, and how many questions he longed to have asked Mr. Cope! He wanted
to know whether it came easier to Jem to be patient than to himself;
whether he suffered as much wearing pain; whether he grieved over the
last hope of using his limbs; and above all, the question he knew he
never could bear to ask, whether Jem had the dread of death to scare his
thoughts, though never confessed to himself.

He longed for Mr. Cope's next visit, and felt strongly drawn towards that
thought of Jem, yet ashamed to think of himself as so much less patient
and submissive; so little able to take comfort in what seemed to soothe
Jem, that it was the Lor