or myself with some straw, and
putting the remainder of my meal into my handkerchief to serve as a
pillow, laid myself down, and the ostler having given me a rug to pull
over me, I slept soundly there the whole night.

In the morning, after I had done a little more in the stable, I walked
out with my new friend into the street, where seeing some soldiers, I
told him I should like to become one. He said he knew where he could
enlist me, and took me straight to the rendezvous, which was in a
public-house, where we met a sergeant of artillery, who gave him two
guineas for bringing me and myself five for coming, and when my
measurement had been taken, a proceeding which was accompanied with no
small amount of joking, I was put into an old soldier's coat, and with
three or four yards of ribbon hanging from my cap, paraded the town
with other recruits, entering and treating some one or other in almost
every public-house.

It almost seemed, however, as if my hopes were again to be blighted,
for in the very first house I entered, there sat a farmer from my home
who knew me very well, and exclaimed on seeing me, "Hullo, young
fellow, as you make your bed so you must lie on it." I entreated him
not to tell my father and mother where and how he had seen me, and
made my exit as quickly as possible; but later in the day I
encountered another man, my father's next-door neighbour, who also
recognized me immediately. I offered him the price of a gallon of ale
not to say anything, and he promised, taking the money, but as soon as
he got home he went to my father and acquainted him with what I was up
to.

How I was spending the rest of the night meanwhile can better be
conceived than described; but next morning, as I was going up to the
Town Hall with an officer to be sworn in, who should meet us but my
father and mother. On their telling the officer that I was an
apprentice, he gave me up to them without any further trouble, except
that he asked me what had become of my bounty money, and on finding
that I had only seventeen shillings and sixpence left out of my whole
five guineas, kindly took the care of even that off my hands. Then we
marched off home, and my father went to find out what was to be done
in the matter from a magistrate, who advised him to take me back to
Dorchester to be tried at the next sittings; which advice being acted
on, I was severely reprimanded by the bench, and given my choice of
serving my time or else goi