abel goes to school again.—dame datchett.—a column of spelling.—abel plays moocher.—the miller’s man cannot make up his mind.
abel went to school again in the spring, and, though george would have been better pleased had he forgotten the whole affair, he remembered the word in george’s young woman’s love-letter which had puzzled him; and never was a spelling-lesson set him among the m’s that he did not hope to come across it and to be able to demand the meaning of moerdyk from his dame.
without the excuse of its coming in the column of spelling set by herself, abel dared not ask her to solve his puzzle; for never did teacher more warmly resent questions which she was unable to answer than dame datchett.
abel could not fully make up his mind whether it should be looked up among two-syllabled or three-syllabled words. he decided for the former, and one day brought his spelling-book to george in the round-house.
“i’ve been a looking for that yere word, gearge,” said he. “there’s lots of mo’s, but it bean’t among ’em. here they be. words of two syllables; m, ma, me, mi; here they be, mo.” and abel began to rattle off the familiar column at a good rate, george looking earnestly over his shoulder, and following the boy’s finger as it moved rapidly down the page. “mocking, modern, mohawk, molar, molly, moment, money, moping, moral, mortal, moses, motive, movement.”
“stop a bit, mun,” cried george; “what do all they words mean? they bothers me.”
“i knows some of ’em,” said abel, “and i asked dame datchett about the others, but she do be so cross; and i thinks some of ’em bothered she too. there’s mocking. i knows that. ‘what’s a modern, dame?’ says i. ‘a muddle-headed fellow the likes of you,’ says she. ‘what’s a mohawk, dame?’ says i. ‘it’s what you’ll come to before long, ye young hang-gallus,’ says she. i was feared on her, gearge, i can tell ’ee; but i tried my luck again. ‘what’s a molar, dame?’ says i. ‘’tis a wus word than t’other,’ says she; ‘and, if ’ee axes me any more voolish questions, i’ll break thee yead for ’ee.’ do ’ee think ’tis a very bad word, gearge?” added abel, with a rather indefensible curiosity.
“i never heard un,” said george. and this was perhaps decisive against the dame’s statement. “and i don’t believe un neither. i think it bothered she. i believe ’tis a genteel word for a man as catches oonts. they call oonts moles in some parts, so p’r’aps they calls a man as catches moles a molar, as they calls a man as drives a mill a miller.”
“’tis likely too, gearge,” said abel. “well! molly we knows. and moment, and moping, and moral.”
“what’s moral?” inquired george.
“’tis what they put at the end of vables, gearge. there’s vables at the end of the spelling-book, and i’ve read un all. there’s the wolf and the lamb, and”—
“i knows now,” said george. “’tis like the last verse of that song about the harnet and the bittle. go on, abel.”
“mortal. that’s swearing. moses. that’s in the bible, gearge. motive. i thought i’d try un just once more. ‘what’s a motive, dame?’ says i. ‘i’ve got un here,’ says she, quite quiet-like. but i seed her feeling under ’s chair, and i know’d ’twas for the strap, and i ran straight off, spelling-book and all, gearge.”
“so thee’ve been playing moocher, eh?” said george, with an unpleasant twinkle in his eyes. “what’ll master lake say to that?”
“don’t ’ee tell un, gearge!” abel implored; “and, o gearge! let i tell mother about the word. maybe she’ve heard tell of it. let i show her the letter, gearge. she’ll read it for ’ee. she’s a scholard, is mother.”
there was no mistaking now the wrath in george’s face. the fury that is fed by fear blazes pretty strongly at all times.
“look ’ee, abel, my boy,” said he, pinching abel’s shoulder till he turned red and white with pain. “if thee ever speaks of that letter and that word to any mortal soul, i’ll tell master lake thee plays moocher, and i’ll half kill thee myself. thee shall rue the day ever thee was born!” he added, almost beside himself with rage and terror. and as, after a few propitiating words, abel fled from the mill, george ground his hands together and muttered, “motive! i wish the old witch had motived every bone in thee body, or let me do ’t!”
master george sannel was indeed a little irritable at this stage of his career. like the miller, he had had one stroke of good luck, but capricious fortune would not follow up the blow.
he had made five pounds pretty easily. but how to turn some other property of which he had become possessed to profit for himself was, after months of waiting, a puzzle still.
he was well aware that his own want of education was the great hindrance to his discovering for himself the exact worth of what he had got. and to his suspicious nature the idea of letting any one else into his secret, even to gain help, was quite intolerable.
abel seemed to be no nearer even to the one word that george had showed him, after weeks of “schooling,” and george himself progressed so slowly in learning to read that he was at times tempted to give up the effort in despair.
of his late outburst against abel he afterwards repented, as impolitic, and was soon good friends again with his very placable teacher.
much of the time when he should have been at work did george spend in “puzzling” over his position. sometimes, as from an upper window of the mill he saw the little jan in abel’s arms, he would mutter,—
“if a body were to kidnap un, would they advertise he, i wonders?” and after some consideration would shake his white head doubtfully, saying, “no, they wants to get rid of un, or they wouldn’t have brought un here.”
happily for poor little jan, the unscrupulous rustic rejected the next idea which came to him as too doubtful of success.
“i wonder if they’d come down something handsome to them as could tell ’em the young varmint was off their hands for good and all. ’twould save un ten shilling a week. ten shilling a week! i heard un with my own ears. i’d a kep’ un for five, if they’d asked me. i wonders now. little uns like that does get stole by gipsies sometimes. varmer smith’s son were, and never heard on again. they falls into a mill-race too sometimes. they be so venturesome. but i doubt ’twouldn’t do. them as it belongs to might be glad enough to get rid of un, and save their credit and their money too by turning upon i after all.”
the miller’s man puzzled himself in vain. he could think of no mode of action at once safe and certain of success. he did not even know whether what he possessed had any value, or how or where to make use of it. but a sort of dim hope of seeing his way yet kept him about the mill, and he persevered in the effort to learn to read, and kept his big ears open for any thing that might drop from the miller or his wife to throw light on the history of jan, with whom his hopes were bound up.
meanwhile, with a dogged patience, he bided his time.
