decided upon than effected; for Postlethwaite, on being summoned, made his appearance in slippers, and declared he had worn out, in his several foraging excursions about the country, the only pair of shoes he had left. Whereupon his master, though it was with some difficulty he admitted the excuse,—and this not until Postlethwaite, with a piteous gravity, had brought out a pair of calkered boots in the very worst possible condition,—began to foresee that there was even more necessity for Postlethwaite to be shod than Paddy, for that unless he could be got over to Cockermouth, they might be fairly starved out. Accordingly, he gave his son Jobby instructions to make the best of his way to the two shoemakers who resided within five miles of Hassness, for he made sure that one of the cobblers at least could be prevailed upon to put Postlethwaite in immediate travelling order.
It was long after nightfall, and Mrs. Sandboys had grown very uneasy as to the fate of her dear boy, when Postlethwaite was heard condoling over the miserable plight of Master Jobby. His mother rushed out to see what had happened, and found the bedraggled youth standing with one shoe in the hall, the other having been left behind in a bog, which he had met with in his attempt to make a short cut home on the other side of the lake by Melbrake.
Nor was the news he brought of a more cheerful nature. John Jackson the shoemaker was nowhere to be found. He had not been heard of since the departure of the train; and John Coss, the other shoemaker, had turned post-boy again, and refused to do any cobbling whatsoever. Coss had told him he got a job to take some gentlefolks in a car over to Carlisle, to meet the train for London, and he was just about to start; and if Jobby liked, he would give him a lift thus far on t' road to Girt 'Shibition.
This was a sad damper for Sandboys, for with John Jackson the shoemaker seemed to vanish his last hope. Postlethwaite had worn out his boots, Jobby had lost his shoes, and John Jackson and John Coss, the only men, within ten miles, who could refit them, were both too fully taken up with the Great Exhibition to trouble their heads about the destitution of Hassness.
Postlethwaite almost smiled when he heard the result of Jobby's twelve-mile walk, and drily remarked to the servant-maid, who already showed strong symptoms of discontent—having herself a sweetheart exposed, without her care, to the temptations and wickedness of London—that the whole family would be soon barefoot, and going about the countryside trying to get one another shod.
Sandboys consulted with his wife as to what was to be done, but she administered but little consolation; for the loss of her tea, and the prospect of no Sunday's dinner, had ruffled her usual equanimity. The sight of her darling boy, too, barefoot and footsore, aroused every passion of her mother's heart. Jobby had no other shoes to his feet, she told her husband, for the rate at which that boy wore his things out was quite terrible to a mother's feelings; but Mr. Sandboys had no right to send the lad to such a distance, after such weather as they
