re the locksmith's thoughts when first seated in the snug corner,
and slowly recovering from a pleasant defect of vision--pleasant,
because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes--which made it a
matter of sound policy and duty to himself, that he should take refuge
from the weather, and tempted him, for the same reason, to aggravate
a slight cough, and declare he felt but poorly. Such were still his
thoughts more than a full hour afterwards, when, supper over, he still
sat with shining jovial face in the same warm nook, listening to the
cricket-like chirrup of little Solomon Daisy, and bearing no unimportant
or slightly respected part in the social gossip round the Maypole fire.

'I wish he may be an honest man, that's all,' said Solomon, winding up
a variety of speculations relative to the stranger, concerning whom
Gabriel had compared notes with the company, and so raised a grave
discussion; 'I wish he may be an honest man.'

'So we all do, I suppose, don't we?' observed the locksmith.

'I don't,' said Joe.

'No!' cried Gabriel.

'No. He struck me with his whip, the coward, when he was mounted and I
afoot, and I should be better pleased that he turned out what I think
him.'

'And what may that be, Joe?'

'No good, Mr Varden. You may shake your head, father, but I say no good,
and will say no good, and I would say no good a hundred times over, if
that would bring him back to have the drubbing he deserves.'

'Hold your tongue, sir,' said John Willet.

'I won't, father. It's all along of you that he ventured to do what he
did. Seeing me treated like a child, and put down like a fool, HE plucks
up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he thinks--and may well
think too--hasn't a grain of spirit. But he's mistaken, as I'll show
him, and as I'll show all of you before long.'

'Does the boy know what he's a saying of!' cried the astonished John
Willet.

'Father,' returned Joe, 'I know what I say and mean, well--better than
you do when you hear me. I can bear with you, but I cannot bear the
contempt that your treating me in the way you do, brings upon me from
others every day. Look at other young men of my age. Have they no
liberty, no will, no right to speak? Are they obliged to sit mumchance,
and to be ordered about till they are the laughing-stock of young and
old? I am a bye-word all over Chigwell, and I say--and it's fairer
my saying so now, than waiting till you are dead, and I have got your
money--