i' a common style. I wish we'd kept a bit o' brass i' th' owd stockin."
"It's a bad enow lookout," granted another, "but I would na gi' up aw at onet, Sammy. Happen tha could find a bit o' leet work, as ud keep thee owt o' th' Union. If tha could get a word or two spoke to Mester Hoviland, now. He's jest lost his lodge-keeper an' he is na close about payin' a mon fur what he does. How would tha loike to keep the lodge?"
"It ud be aw I'd ax," said Sammy. "I'd be main well satisfied, yo' mebbe sure; but yo' know theer's so mony lookin' out for a job o' that koind, an' I ha' na mony friends among th' quality. I nivver war smooth-tongued enow."
True enough that. Among the country gentry, Sammy Craddock was regarded as a disrespectful, if not a dangerous, old fellow. A man who made satirical observations upon the ways and manners of his social superiors, could not be much better than a heretic. And since his associates made an oracle of him, he was all the more dangerous. He revered neither Lords nor Commons, and was not to be awed by the most imposing institutions. He did not take his hat off when the gentry rode by, and it was well known that he had jeered at several of the most important individuals in county office. Consequently, discreet persons who did not believe in the morals of "the masses" shook their heads at him, figuratively speaking, and predicted that the end of his career would be unfortunate. So it was not very likely that he would receive much patronage in the hour of his downfall.
Sammy Craddock was in. an uncomfortable frame of mind when he left his companions and turned homeward. It was a bad lookout for himself, and a bad one for "th'
