Standing on tiptoe, on a joint-stool, placed upon the bench, with his back to the door, and a clasp-knife in his hand, this youngster, instead of executing his appointed task, was occupied in carving his name upon a beam, overhead.  Boys, at the time of which we write, were attired like men of their own day, or certain charity-children of ours; and the stripling in question was dressed in black plush breeches, and a gray drugget waistcoat, with immoderately long pockets, both of which were evidently the cast-off clothes of some one considerably his senior.  Coat, on the present occasion, he had none, it being more convenient, as well as agreeable to him, to pursue his avocations in his shirtsleeves; but, when fully equipped, he wore a large-cuffed, long-skirted garment, which had once been the property of his master.

In concealing himself behind the timber, Mr. Wood could not avoid making a slight shuffling sound.  The noise startled the apprentice, who instantly suspended his labour, and gazed anxiously in the direction whence he supposed it proceeded.  His face was that of a quick, intelligent-looking boy, with fine hazel eyes, and a clear olive complexion.  His figure was uncommonly slim even for his age, which could not be more than thirteen; and the looseness of his garb made him appear thinner than he was in reality.  But if his frame was immature, his looks were not so.  He seemed to possess a penetration and cunning beyond his years—­to hide a man’s judgment under a boy’s mask.  The glance, which he threw at the door, was singularly expressive of his character:  it was a mixture of alarm, effrontery, and resolution.  In the end, resolution triumphed, as it was sure to do, over the weaker emotions, and he laughed at his fears.  The only part of his otherwise-interesting countenance, to which one could decidedly object, was the mouth; a feature that, more than any other, is conceived to betray the animal propensities of the possessor.  If this is true, it must be owned that the boy’s mouth showed a strong tendency on his part to coarse indulgence.  The eyes, too, though large and bright, and shaded by long lashes, seemed to betoken, as hazel eyes generally do in men, a faithless and uncertain disposition.  The cheek-bones were prominent:  the nose slightly depressed, with rather wide nostrils; the chin narrow, but well-formed; the forehead broad and lofty; and he possessed such an extraordinary flexibility of muscle in this region, that he could elevate his eye-brows at pleasure up to the very verge of his sleek and shining black hair, which, being closely cropped, to admit of his occasionally wearing a wig, gave a singular bullet-shape to his head.  Taken altogether, his physiognomy resembled one of those vagabond heads which Murillo delighted to paint, and for which Guzman d’Alfarache, Lazarillo de Tormes, or Estevanillo Gonzalez might have sat:—­faces that almost make one in love with roguery, they seem so full of vivacity and enjoyment.  There was all the knavery, and more than all the drollery of a Spanish picaroon in the laughing eyes of the English apprentice; and, with a little more warmth and sunniness of skin on the side of the latter, the resemblance between them would have been complete.