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Updated: May 10, 2025
Perhaps the men had absolutely forgotten how much of their cherished Bible was integral in the hated Prayer-book; at any rate they were enough taken aback to enable Jeph to pull his brother out at the door, not without a fraternal cuff or two, as he exclaimed: "Thou foolish fellow! ever running into danger for very dullness." "What have I done, Jeph?" asked poor Stead, still bewildered. "Done!
She had read o' some such contrivance somewhere, for she was a great reader. Ever since that time I've bin trying, in my poor way, to make something o' the sort, but I've not managed it yet. I like to think she would have been pleased to see me at it." Old Jeph stopped at this point, and shook his head slowly. Then he continued
As he walked through the wood, and drew near the glade, he was dismayed to hear voices, and to see Peter Pierce leaning against the wall of the house, but Rusha came running up to him exclaiming, "Oh! Stead, here is this good stranger that you met, telling us all about brother Jeph."
Bax said this warmly, for there was a strong bond of sympathy between him and his old friend, whom he could not bear to hear mentioned in a slighting manner. "I meant not to say a word against old Jeph," replied Mr Burton, quickly. "I merely spoke of him in the way in which seamen in these parts commonly refer to him.
"Father was a good man after his light," said Jeph, a little staggered, "but that light was but darkness, and we to whom the day itself is vouchsafed are not bound by a charge laid on us in ignorance. Any way, he laid no bonds on me, but I must needs leave thee alone in thy foolishness of bondage!
"I'd take my oath he has hid them somewheres," replied Jack Beard, an ill-looking lad. "What a windfall they would be for him as found them!" observed Wilkes. "I'd like to look over the parsonage house," said Jeph. "No use. Old dame housekeeper has locked herself in, as savage as a bear with a sore head."
They were pointing to his head, and two of them had caught him by the shoulders, when another voice rose "Ha! Let him alone. I say, Bill! Faithful! It's my brother. He knows no better!" Then dashing up, Jeph rammed the great hat down over Stead's brow, eyes and all, and called out, "Whoever touches my brother must have at me first."
By this time Jeph and Stead had returned with a jug of small beer, a horn cup, and three hunches of the barley loaf. The men ate and drank, and then the tapster returning hearty thanks, called the others on, observing that if they did not make the best speed, they might miss their billet, and have to sleep in the streets, if not become acquainted with the lash.
Jeph had been warned to keep his cattle well out of sight from any of the roads, but when he could see the troops moving about he could not recollect anything else, and one afternoon Croppie strayed into the lane where the grass grew thick and rank, and the others followed her. Jeph had turned her back and was close to the farmstead when he heard shouts and the clattering of trappings.
The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and Wells had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after their mother died, and even Jeph was sad and subdued. Since that sad day when the good mother had blessed them for the last time, there had been little time for anything.
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