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Methinks Cuthbert will need no hint from me to despise the home of the honest wool stapler. He has been bred in woods and forests. He has the blood of the Trevlyns in his veins. I trow the shop on London Bridge will have small charms for him.
As the editor of the Stonor Letters remarks, 'The sincerity and honesty of Betson's character as revealed in his letters, forbids one to suppose that he was to blame. The stapler, who would make a good livelihood, must do two things, and give his best attention to both of them: first, he must buy his wool from the English grower, then he must sell it to the foreign buyer.
Violence he deprecated, though he had killed men in his time. Turbulence he abhorred. He always avoided it as he would the plague. Captain Stapler stepped in to help McMurtrey: "I remember, when I changed schooners and came into Altman, the niggers knew right off the bat it was me. I wasn't expected, either, much less to be in another craft. They told the trader it was me.
But for all that I scarce think that when Cuthbert starts forth again it will be for London Bridge that he will be bound!" "And so it is to London thou wilt go to the worthy wool stapler on the Bridge?" and Kate, mindful of her promise to her parents, strove to suppress the little grimace with which she was disposed to accompany her words "at least so my father saith."
Jacketed, trousered, and shod, they were: Jerry McMurtrey, the manager; Eddy Little and Jack Andrews, clerks; Captain Stapler, of the recruiting ketch Merry; Darby Shryleton, planter from Tito-Ito; Peter Gee, a half-caste Chinese pearl-buyer who ranged from Ceylon to the Paumotus, and Alfred Deacon, a visitor who had stopped off from the last steamer.
"I am right glad to hear it, for perchance you can then direct me to the dwelling of Master Martin Holt, the wool stapler, if he yet plies his trade there as his father did before him." "Martin Holt!" cried Cherry, eagerly interrupting. "Why, good sir, Martin Holt is my father."
The Bradford stapler has the northern method of speech, which sounds unfamiliar in the midland and southern counties, but it is not so cryptic as that of the Scottish wool trade. The following colloquy is reported as having passed between two Scots over a deal in woollen cloth. Buyer. "'Oo?" Seller. "Ay, 'oo." Buyer. "A' 'oo?" Seller. "Ay, a' 'oo." Buyer. "A' a 'oo?" Seller. "Ay, a' a 'oo."
Often at Northleach Betson must have encountered his brethren of the Staple, the staid old merchant Richard Cely among the rest, and son George who rides with 'Meg', his hawk, on his wrist, and has a horse called 'Bayard' and another called 'Py'; and perhaps also John Barton of Holme beside Newark, the proud stapler who set as a 'posy' in the stained glass windows of his house this motto: I thank God and ever shall It is the sheepe hath payed for all;
"A wool stapler!" muttered Kate, with a slight pout of her pretty lips. "I was going to have sent him to Culverhouse with a letter, to see what he would do for my cousin." "Lord Culverhouse could not do much," answered her father, with a smile. "He is but a stripling himself, and has his own way yet to make.
"All right," said Peter Gee. At another table four of the others sat in at bridge. Captain Stapler, who was no card-player, looked on and replenished the long glasses of Scotch that stood at each man's right hand. McMurtrey, with poorly concealed apprehension, followed as well as he could what went on at the piquet table.
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