"I should dearly like to take the child as my own and rear him up to follow me when I've closed the school door for the last time and the long vacation begins for the old dominie. I could bring the lad on in arithmetic, grammar, the use of the globes, mensuration, algebra up to quadratic equations, Latin as far as Caesar _De Bello_ and the Greek Testament as far as Matthew," and Mr. Black's eyes glistened at the alluring prospect. "To be sure yo' could, no man better," assented Mr. Redfearn, none the less stoutly that he did not know what Mr. Black meant. "Aw'd a dog once called Caesar, but Bello's beyond me." "It's to 'prentice him to th' blacksmith, can't ta see?" said Aleck. "Aw see, an' a very gooid notion too." "But I cannot take the child on, though fain I'd be to do it. You know Priscilla's never wed. She says it's for my sake, and doubtless she knows best. But she isn't as young as she was, and those plaguy boys have tried her temper. I wouldn't say it to anyone, but Priscilla is a little, just a little, mind you, tetchy, so to speak, and certain sure I am she'd neither be willing nor able to do for a helpless bairn." "Aw see how it'll end," cried Molly. "Sakes alive! Farmer, missus, an' schoolmaster all backin aat, like those folk i' th' Bible 'at wer' bid to th' weddin', an' nooan on 'em could come. There's nobbut one end for yo' an' that's th' work'us, th' big hoil o'th' hill yonder, as weel say it as think it," and the incensed virago bounced out of the kitchen and joined the company in the taproom in a game of "checkers" and sparing neither partner nor opponent the rasp of her biting tongue. "Yo' could make it, easy for th' bairn?" went on Mr. Black. "An' th' matron's a motherly body wi' childer o' her own," put in the hostess. "An' we needn't lose sight o' th' lad," added Mr. Redfearn. "And I could spare an hour or two a day, when he's big enough. I'll make a course of study this very day. It's the very thing. Good Molly, _rem acu tetigisti_, as we say in the classics." "Exactly," assented the farmer. "By the way, Aleck, did yo' say owt to Mr. Whitelock about th' chrisenin'? Aw'd welly (well-nigh) forgetten it." "After th' buryin', t' same day," said Aleck the terse. "Yo'll be god-mother, Betty, na' who'll stand godfather?" "I've always understood in case of a foundling it takes the finder's name," said Mr. Black. "That's Aleck," said the landlady. "Nay it wer' Pinder theer," protested Aleck. "The very thing," exclaimed Mr. Redfearn, smiting the table so the glasses danced. "Tom Pinder, fit him like a glove. We'll weet his yed i' glasses round an' then whom (home) and bed, say I." Mr. Redfearn glanced at the schoolmaster, the schoolmaster at Mr. Redfearn. "You're the chairman of the Guardians," said the teacher mildly. "An' th' biggest ratepayer, worse luck," said his crony. CHAPTER III.