wo other men and a boy.

Then came along the Old Soldier to Little Sherberton; and he never left it
again till five year ago, when he went out feet first.

To this day I couldn't tell you much about him. His character defied me. I
don't know whether he was good, or bad, or just neither, like most of us.
But on the whole I should be inclined to say he was good. He was cast in a
lofty mould, and had a wide experience of the seamy side of life. I proved
him a liar here and there, and he proved me a fool, but neither of us
shamed the other in that matter, for I said (and still say) that I'd
sooner be a fool then a rascal; while he, though he denied being a rascal,
said that he'd sooner be the biggest knave on earth than a fool. He argued
that any self-respecting creature ought to feel the same, and he had an
opinion to which he always held very stoutly, that the fools made far more
trouble in the world than the knaves. He went further than that, and said
if there were no fools, there wouldn't be no knaves. But there I didn't
hold with him; for a man be born a fool by the will of God, and I never
can see 'tis anything to be shamed about; whereas no man need be a knave,
if he goes to the Lord and Father of us all in a proper spirit, and prays
for grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the
Dowl.

Bob Battle he called himself, and he knocked at the door of Little
Sherberton on a winter night, and asked to see Mary, and would not be put
off by any less person. So she saw him, and heard how he had been tramping
through Holne and stopped for a drink and sang a song to the people in the
bar. It happened that Mr. Churchward, the innkeeper, wanted a message took
to my sister about some geese, and none would go for fear of snow, so the
tramp, for Bob was no better, said that he would go, if they'd put him in
the way and give him a shilling. And Churchward trusted him, because he
said that he reminded him of his dead brother. Though that wasn't nothing
in his favour, seeing what Henry Churchward had been in life.

However, Bob earned his money and came along, and Mary saw him and took
him in, and let him shake the snow off himself and eat and drink. Then
began the famous blizzard, and I've often thought old Bob must have known
it was coming. At any rate there was no choice but to let him stop, for it
would have been death to turn him out again. So he stopped, and when the
bad weather was over, he wouldn't go.