r bore much wealth, but because I had
been thrifting it for this time of my birth--we were leaning quite at
dusk against the iron bars of the gate some six, or it may be seven of
us, small boys all, and not conspicuous in the closing of the daylight
and the fog that came at eventide, else Cop would have rated us up the
green, for he was churly to little boys when his wife had taken their
money. There was plenty of room for all of us, for the gate will hold
nine boys close-packed, unless they be fed rankly, whereof is little
danger; and now we were looking out on the road and wishing we could get
there; hoping, moreover, to see a good string of pack-horses come by,
with troopers to protect them. For the day-boys had brought us word that
some intending their way to the town had lain that morning at Sampford
Peveril, and must be in ere nightfall, because Mr. Faggus was after
them. Now Mr. Faggus was my first cousin and an honour to the family,
being a Northmolton man of great renown on the highway from Barum town
even to London. Therefore of course, I hoped that he would catch the
packmen, and the boys were asking my opinion as of an oracle, about it.

A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my elbow room, and
struck me very sadly in the stomach part, though his own was full of my
parliament. And this I felt so unkindly, that I smote him straightway in
the face without tarrying to consider it, or weighing the question duly.
Upon this he put his head down, and presented it so vehemently at the
middle of my waistcoat, that for a minute or more my breath seemed
dropped, as it were, from my pockets, and my life seemed to stop from
great want of ease. Before I came to myself again, it had been settled
for us that we should move to the 'Ironing-box,' as the triangle of turf
is called where the two causeways coming from the school-porch and the
hall-porch meet, and our fights are mainly celebrated; only we must
wait until the convoy of horses had passed, and then make a ring by
candlelight, and the other boys would like it. But suddenly there came
round the post where the letters of our founder are, not from the way
of Taunton but from the side of Lowman bridge, a very small string of
horses, only two indeed (counting for one the pony), and a red-faced man
on the bigger nag.

'Plaise ye, worshipful masters,' he said, being feared of the gateway,
'carn 'e tull whur our Jan Ridd be?'

'Hyur a be, ees fai, Jan Ridd,' a