TWO:"Become a bondman!" cried the smith, disappointed and mortified at the alternative: "Stephen, I would sooner die.""Will I help, man! Aye, that I will, with a good stomachWhy, if they shut up a dog that I cared for within those four stone walls, I would help him out!But that monk is a holy manand they think to frighten him as they thought to frighten me. Tom," added Turner, leaning through the aperture, and laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder, "I have never held up my head like a man since that night. To be set upon like a fox! To be dragged and hauled, and thrown into a prisonTom! (grasping the arm of the other with a force that made him shrink) when I think of this in the day when I am at work, I throw down the hammer, for my blood boils, and I could not strike a sure blow for hours after, if a king's ransom was offered me. But, by St. Nicholas! 'tis little work that Wat Turner has done ever sinceall has gone wrongbut I shall soon leave the parish altogetherand then, may be, things will go on better. For, here, if a man looks at me, it seems as if he would say, 'Turner, you have been in jail!' Tom Merritt, never boast or brag of anything!"
