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“Ay, eight shillin’ a week yer father give me,” repeated Robbins, reverting to his original statement, and once more rubbing his hands and blinking his dim eyes as though in the effort to gaze back on that distant past. “I mind ’twas thought wonderful high pay i’ them days; folks was gettin’ six shillin’ an’ five, but yer father said I was wuth it to en; an’ when he died an’ I went to live yonder with you ye give me eight shillin’ a week an’ my keep—ay, that was summat, I was hearty enough then. Ye give me that for ten year, an’ then ye got married an’ I must shift to the village, an’ then ye give me ten shillin’ a week. And when I were fifty year of age I up an’ I says to you, ‘Master,’ says I, ‘I’ve a-sarved ye twenty-five year now an’ ye must raise me,’ says I, d’ye mind? So ye rose me two shillin’, didn’t ye? Well, an’ I’ve had twelve shillin’ a week ever since,” he summed up, and his eyes, which had been travelling slowly back over the years, reverted altogether to the present and fixed themselves reproachfully on his master’s face. “An’ now I be to have bwoy’s pay again, be I?” he queried with an almost childish quiver and droop of the under lip.