“Yes, ultimately,” said Mrs. Garth, who having a special dislike to fine words on ugly occasions, could not now repress an epigram. “But boys cannot well be apprenticed ultimately: they should be apprenticed at fifteen.” She had never been so little inclined to make excuses for Fred.
“I was the most in the wrong, Susan,” said Caleb. “Fred made sure of finding the money. But I’d no business to be fingering bills. I suppose you have looked all round and tried all honest means?” he added, fixing his merciful gray eyes on Fred. Caleb was too delicate to specify Mr. Featherstone.
“Yes, I have tried everything—I really have. I should have had a hundred and thirty pounds ready but for a misfortune with a horse which I was about to sell. My uncle had given me eighty pounds, and I paid away thirty with my old horse in order to get another which I was going to sell for eighty or more—I meant to go without a horse—but now it has turned out vicious and lamed itself. I wish I and the horses too had been at the devil, before I had brought this on you. There’s no one