ly,
with a royal pardon in black and white, which everybody admired the
more, because no one could read a word of it. The Squire himself
acknowledged cheerfully that he could sooner take fifty purses than read
a single line of it. Some people indeed went so far as to say that the
parchment was made from a sheep Tom had stolen, and that was why it
prevaricated so in giving him a character. But I, knowing something by
this time, of lawyers, was able to contradict them; affirming that the
wolf had more than the sheep to do with this matter.

For, according to our old saying, the three learned professions live by
roguery on the three parts of a man. The doctor mauls our bodies; the
parson starves our souls, but the lawyer must be the adroitest knave,
for he has to ensnare our minds. Therefore he takes a careful delight in
covering his traps and engines with a spread of dead-leaf words, whereof
himself knows little more than half the way to spell them.

But now Tom Faggus, although having wit to gallop away on his strawberry
mare, with the speed of terror, from lawyers (having paid them with
money too honest to stop), yet fell into a reckless adventure, ere ever
he came home, from which any lawyer would have saved him, although he
ought to have needed none beyond common thought for dear Annie. Now I
am, and ever have been, so vexed about this story that I cannot tell it
pleasantly (as I try to write in general) in my own words and manner.
Therefore I will let John Fry (whom I have robbed of another story,
to which he was more entitled, and whom I have robbed of many speeches
(which he thought very excellent), lest I should grieve any one with his
lack of education,--the last lack he ever felt, by the bye), now with
your good leave, I will allow poor John to tell this tale, in his own
words and style; which he has a perfect right to do, having been the
first to tell us. For Squire Faggus kept it close; not trusting even
Annie with it (or at least she said so); because no man knows much of
his sweetheart's tongue, until she has borne him a child or two.

Only before John begins his story, this I would say, in duty to him, and
in common honesty,--that I dare not write down some few of his words,
because they are not convenient, for dialect or other causes; and that I
cannot find any way of spelling many of the words which I do repeat, so
that people, not born on Exmoor, may know how he pronounced them; even
if they could brin