"For instance, I shall go round tomorrow morning with my dog whip to Thorne's; and I shall offer him the choice of giving that boy of his the soundest thrashing he ever had, while I stand by to see it, or of going out of his house at the end of the quarter.
"I rather hope he will choose the latter alternative.

That beer shop of his is the haunt of all the idle fellows in the village.

I have a strong suspicion that he is in league with the poachers, if he doesn't poach himself; and the first opportunity I get of laying my finger upon him, out he goes." A few days later when Kate Ellison issued from the gate of the house, which lay just at the end of the village, with the basket containing some jelly and medicine for a sick child, she found Reuben Whitney awaiting her.

He touched his cap.
"Please, miss, I made bold to come here, to thank you for having cleared me." "But I couldn't help clearing you, Reuben, for you see, I knew it wasn't you." "Well, miss, it was very kind, all the same; and I am very much obliged to you." "But why do you get into scrapes ?" the girl said.

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be suspected of other things.