Ellen was rather familiar with Mrs. Shepherd, because she made her gowns, and they had some talk about the new clergyman.  Mrs. Shepherd did not care for clergymen much; if she had done so, she might not have been so hard with her labourers.  She was always afraid of their asking her to subscribe to something or other, so she gave it as her opinion, that she should never think it worth while to listen to such a very young man as that, and she hoped he would not stay; and then she said, ’So your brother was taking up with that come-by-chance lad, I saw.  Did he make anything out of him?’

‘He fancies him more than I like, or Mother either,’ said Ellen.  ’He says he’s out of Upperscote Union; but he’s a thorough impudent one, and owns he’s no father nor mother, nor nothing belonging to him.  I think it is a deal more likely that he is run away from some reformatory, or prison.’

‘That’s just what I said to the farmer!’ said Mrs. Shepherd.  ’I said he was out of some place of that sort.  I’m sure it’s a sin for the gentlemen to be setting up such places, raising the county rates, and pampering up a set of young rogues to let loose on us.  Ay! ay!  I’ll warrant he’s a runaway thief!  I told the farmer he’d take him to his sorrow, but you see he is short of hands just now, and the men are so set up and grabbing, I don’t know how farmers is to live.’

So Mrs. Shepherd went away grumbling, instead of being thankful for the beautiful crop of hay, safely housed, before the thunder shower which had saved the turnips from the fly.

Ellen might have doubted whether she had done right in helping to give the boy a bad name, but just then in came the ostler from the Tankard with some letters.

‘Here!’ he said, ’here’s one from one of the gentlemen lodging here fishing, to Cayenne.  You’ll please to see how much there is to pay.’

Ellen looked at her Postal Guide, but she was quite at a fault, and she called up-stairs to Alfred to ask if he knew where she should look for Cayenne.  He was rather fond of maps, and knew a good deal of geography for a boy of his age, but he knew nothing about this place, and she was just thinking of sending back the letter, to ask the gentleman where it was, when a voice said: 

‘Try Guiana, or else South America.’

She looked up, and there were Paul’s dirty face and dirtier elbows, leaning over the half-door of the shop.

‘Why, how do you know?’ she said, starting back.

‘I learnt at school, Cayenne, capital of French Guiana.’  Sure enough Cayenne had Guiana to it in her list, and the price was found out.

But when this learned geographer advanced into the shop, and asked for a loaf, what a hand and what a sleeve did he stretch out!  Ellen scarcely liked to touch his money, and felt all her disgust revive.  But, for all that, and for all her fear of Harold’s running into mischief, what business had she to set it about that the stranger was an escaped convict?