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Page 42
At this point the squire was laughing so noisily that Sophia had to
stop; and his hearty _ha, ha, ha_! was so contagious, that Harry and
Julius and Charlotte, and even Mrs. Sandal, echoed it in a variety of
merry peals. Sophia was calmer. She sat by the lamp, pleasantly
conscious of the amusement she was giving; and, considering that she had
already laughed the circumstance out in her room, quite as well
entertained as any of the party. In a few minutes the squire recovered
himself. "Let us have the rest now, Sophia. I'd have given a gold
guinea to have heard Joe's 'burst.'"
"Show my face?" said Joe; "and what should I show, then? If it
comes to showing faces, I've a better face to show than ever
belonged to one of your breed, if the rest of them are aught like
the sample they have sent us. But if you must know," said Joe, "I
come of a stock that never would be frightened to show their face
to a king, let alone an old noodles that calls himself a
jolly-jist. And I defy the face of clay," said Joe, "to show that
any of us ever did aught he need to be ashamed of, wherever we show
our faces. Dare to show my face, eh?" said Joe again, "My song! but
this is a bonnie welcome to give a fellow that has come so far to
see you such a hot morning." Joe said a deal more of the same make;
and all the time he was saying it, the old man laid himself back in
his great chair, and kept twiddling his thumbs, and glancing up at
Joe with a half-smirk on his face, as if he had got something very
funny before him.
"Joe is like all these shepherd lads," said the squire, "as independent
as never was. They are a manly race, but the Bulteels all come of a good
kind."
Julius laughed scornfully, but the squire took him up very short. "You
need not laugh, nephew. It is as I say. The Bulteels are as good stock
as the Sandals; a fine old family, and, like the Sandals, at home here
when the Conqueror came. Joe would do the right thing I'll be bound. Let
us hear if he didn't, Sophia."
After a while Joe stopped, for he had run himself very near short
of wind; and he began rather to think shame of shouting and
bellering so at an old man, and him as whisht as a trout through it
all. And when Joe pulled in, he only said, as quietly as ever was,
that Joe was a "natural curiosity."
Joe didn't know very well what this meant; but he thought it was
sauce, and it had like to have set him off again; but he beat
himself down as well as he could, and he said, "Have you any thing
against me? If you have, speak it out like a man; and don't sit
there twiddling your thumbs, and calling folks out of their names
in this road." Then it came out plain enough. All this ill-nature,
Miss Sandal, was just because poor Joe hadn't brought him the same
stones as he had gathered on the fells; and he said that changing
them was either a very dirty trick, or a very clumsy joke.
"Trick," said Joe. "_Joke_, did you say? It was ratherly past a
joke to expect me to carry a load of broken stones all the way
here, when there was plenty on the spot. I'm not such a fool as
you've taken me for," said Joe. The jolly-jist took off his
spectacles, and glowered at Joe without them. Then he put them on
again, and glowered at Joe with them; and then he laughed, and
asked Joe, if he thought there could be no difference in stones.
"Why!" answered Joe, "you hardly have the face to tell me that one
bag of stones isn't as good as another bag of stones; and surely to
man you'll never be so conceited as to say that you can break
stones better than old Abraham Atchisson, who breaks them for his
bread, and breaks them all day long and every day."
With that the old man laughed again, and told Joe to sit down; and
then he asked him what he thought made him take so much trouble
seeking bits of stone on the fells, if he could get what he wanted
on the road-side. "Well," Joe said, "if I must tell you the truth,
I thought you were rather soft in the head; but it made no matter
what I thought, so long as you paid me so well for going with you."
As Joe said this, it came into his head that it was better to
flatter a fool than to fight him; and after all, that there might
be something in the old man liking stones of his own breaking
better than those of other folks' breaking. We all think the most
of what we have had a hand in ourselves, don't we Miss Sandal? It's
nothing but natural. And as soon as this run, through Joe's head,
he found himself getting middling sorry for the old man; and he
said, "What will you give me to get you your own bits of stones
back again?"
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