th’ Master wants you in th’ office. No, not you, Jack; you can go into th’ potato patch and don’t let me catch you here again or you’ll know about it.”

The porter was a much more dignified man and more important in his own esteem than the master himself, so it is just as well he had not eyes at the back of his head to see that sign made by a certain application of thumb and outspanned fingers which in all times and countries has been deemed significant of contempt unutterable.

Tom followed the Porter wondering to the office. The Master was closeted with a tall, broad-shouldered, sparer, man, with clean shaven face, keen grey eyes, and hair tinged with grey at tee tell-tale temples. He sat by the table, a tankard of ale at his side, and his hand swinging his riding whip idly to and fro.

“This is the lad, then, Mr. Redfearn wrote to me about? He seems a likely lad enough, but somewhat overgrown. How old are you boy?”

“Rising fifteen, sir.”

Mr. Tinker eyed the youth from head to foot and turned him round and round, feeling the muscles of his arm and the thews of his thigh and calf as though he was appraising a horse at the Cattle Fair.

“Sound in wind and limb, I should judge,” he concluded, “but his age is against him. A lad should go into a mill young, Master, before his bones are set and his fingers stiff, if he’s to be any good. I’m not in your Union or I would have seen to this. The Guardians have no business to keep a big lumbering lout of a lad lazying about the House and eating his head off. It’s demoralising to the lad and is enough to pauperize a whole neighbourhood. What’s his name?”

“Pinder sir, Tom Pinder,” answered the Master, and, whilst Tom stared with all his eyes on the stranger, wondering vastly who he might be and what this interview might portend and wondering too if Workhouse Jack would remember to feed his rabbit and find a fresh sod of grass for his lark, the Master made apology for Tom’s height and girth.

“You see, Mr. Tinker, Pinder’s been kept longer than usual. There’s a sort of mystery about him, and both the Chairman and Mr. Black have taken uncommon interest in him. Indeed the Schoolmaster’s so wrapt up in him he couldn’t have been more if th’ lad had been his own son, which I’d almost think he was myself if it wasn’t so ridiculous. But there’s never no telling, is there, Mr. Tinker? these quiet uns is often as deep an’ dark as a pit, bu’ we’re all human, eh?” And Master winked a 

 Prev. P 44/194 next