"Joe is like all these shepherd lads," said the squire, "as independent
as never was. They are a manly race, but the Bulteels all come of a good
kind."
Julius laughed scornfully, but the squire took him up very short. "You
need not laugh, nephew. It is as I say. The Bulteels are as good stock
as the Sandals; a fine old family, and, like the Sandals, at home here
when the Conqueror came. Joe would do the right thing I'll be bound. Let
us hear if he didn't, Sophia."
After a while Joe stopped, for he had run himself very near short
of wind; and he began rather to think shame of shouting and
bellering so at an old man, and him as whisht as a trout through it
all. And when Joe pulled in, he only said, as quietly as ever was,
that Joe was a "natural curiosity."
Joe didn't know very well what this meant; but he thought it was
sauce, and it had like to have set him off again; but he beat
himself down as well as he could, and he said, "Have you any thing
against me? If you have, speak it out like a man; and don't sit
there twiddling your thumbs, and calling folks out of their names
in this road." Then it came out plain enough. All this ill-nature,
Miss Sandal, was just because poor Joe hadn't brought him the same
stones as he had gathered on the fells; and he said that changing
them was either a very dirty trick, or a very clumsy joke.
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