David and I exchanged glances momentarily, and each shook his head. David said, in a low whisper, "We won't go. It will lose us too much time." Thereupon I spoke up and answered, "We don't want to ride in your wagon back to the village or anywhere else, and we won't do it. We will keep on our road, and if you choose to bring the sheriff to arrest us you may do so. We warn you beforehand, that we shall demand that our expenses shall be paid if you find out that we have told the truth." "Get into the wagon, I say. Do as I tell you!" David was about to speak up, when I shook my head and warned him to be silent. I briefly replied, "Good-day, sir," David doing the same, and we proceeded on our journey. The man called after us two or three times. In fact, he got down from his wagon, throwing the reins into the hands of the boy that accompanied him. We quickened our pace, and I suppose he realized that he would have a very difficult task to coerce two able-bodied youths of seventeen into entering his wagon against their wills. At all events, he did not follow us, and, looking over my shoulder, I saw him remount his wagon-seat and proceed on his way. Perhaps I ought to explain that it was the custom of that time to apprentice, or bind out, boys to learn trades. According to law and practice, a boy was bound to serve his master for seven years, in return for learning the trade and being fed and clothed during the time of his apprenticeship. Sometimes the apprentice received wages for his services during the last year, or the last two or three years, of his time; and sometimes a premium was paid by the apprentice or on his behalf. A good deal depended on the character of the trade in which he was engaged, and also upon the excess or scarcity of boys wishing to learn trades. The man who stopped us was fairly justified in suspecting that we were runaway apprentices, as it was in no ways unusual for boys who had been bound out and thought that they were badly treated, to run away from their masters. Usually they went in pairs, and they also directed their steps to the nearest important seaport, for the double reason that they could more easily avoid recapture, and at the same time find employment of some sort. The great majority of the boys of that time had, like David and myself, a longing for the sea, and it was quite natural for any one meeting us on the road to conclude that we were what the man supposed us to be when he endeavored to stop us. We kept steadily on our way and met with no further trouble. When we judged, by the position of the sun and also by the distance we had traveled that it was past the hour of noon, we sat down by the bank of a brook at the roadside, opened our packs, and took out our dinner. We had ravenous appetites from our long walk, and the cold meat and bread which had been prepared for us was quickly eaten. We washed it down with water from the brook, and after resting for perhaps half an hour, went on.