the white horse.—comrogues.—moerdyk.—george confides in the cheap jack—with reservation.
when the cheap jack’s horse came to the brow of the hill, it stopped, and with drooping neck stood still as before. the cheap jack was busy with george, and it was at no word from him that the poor beast paused. it knew at what point to wait, and it waited. there was little temptation to go on. the road down the hill had just been mended with flints; some of these were the size of an average turnip, and the hill was steep. so the old horse poked out his nose, and stood almost dozing, till the sound of the cheap jack’s shuffling footsteps caused him to prick his ears, and brace his muscles for a fresh start.
the miller’s man came also, who was sulky, whilst the cheap jack was civil. he gave his horse a cut across the knees, to remind him to plant his feet carefully among the sharp boulders; and then, choosing a smooth bit by the side of the road, he and george went forward together.
“you’ve took to picters, i see,” said george, nodding towards the cart.
“so i have, my dear,” said the cheap jack; “any thing for a livelihood; an honest livelihood, you know, george.” and he winked at the miller’s man, who relaxed his sulkiness for a guffaw.
“you’ve had so little in my way lately, george,” the hunchback continued, looking sharply sideways up at his companion. “sly business has been slack, my dear, eh?”
but george made no answer, and the cheap jack, after relieving his feelings by another cut at the horse, changed the subject.
“that’s a sharp little brat of the miller’s,” said he, alluding to jan. “and he ain’t much like the others. old-fashioned, too. children mostly likes the gay picters, and worrits their mothers for ’em, bless ’em! but he picked out an ancient-looking thing,—came from a bankrupt pawnshop, my dear, in a lot. i almost think i let it go too cheap; but that’s my failing. and a beggarly place like this ain’t like london. in london there’s a place for every thing, my dear, and shops for old goods as well as new, and customers too; and the older and dirtier some things is, the more they fetches.”
there was a pause, for george did not speak; and the cheap jack, bent upon amiability, repeated his remark,—“a sharp little brat, too!”
“what be ’ee harping on about him for?” asked george, suspiciously. “i knows what i knows about un, but that’s no business of yours.”
“you know about most things, my dear,” said the cheap jack, flatteringly. “they’ll have to get up very early that catch you napping. but what about the child, george?”
“never you mind,” said george. “but he ain’t none of the miller’s, i’ll tell ’ee that; and he ain’t the missus’s neither.”
“what is he to you, my dear?” asked the dwarf, curiously, and, getting no answer, he went on: “he’d be useful in a good many lines. he’d not do bad in a circus, but he’d draw prime as a young prodigy.”
george looked round, “you be thinking of stealing he then, as well as”—
“hush, my dear,” said the dwarf. “no, no, i don’t want him. but there was a good deal of snatching young kids done in my young days; for sweeps, destitute orphans, juvenile performers, and so on.”
“he wouldn’t suit you,” grinned george. “a comes of genteel folk, and a’s not hard enough for how you’d treat un.”
“you’re out there, george,” said the dwarf. “human beings is like ’osses; it’s the genteelest as stands the most. ’specially if they’ve been well fed when they was babies.”
at this point the cheap jack was interrupted by his horse stumbling over a huge, jagged lump of flint, that, with the rest of the road-mending, was a disgrace to a highway of a civilized country. a rate-payer or a horse-keeper might have been excused for losing his temper with the authorities of the road-mending department; but the cheap jack’s wrath fell upon his horse. he beat him over the knees for stumbling, and across the hind legs for slipping, and over his face for wincing, and accompanied his blows with a torrent of abuse.
what a moment that must have been for balaam’s ass, in which she found voice to remonstrate against the unjust blows, which have, nevertheless, fallen pretty thickly ever since upon her descendants and their fellow-servants of ungrateful man! from how many patient eyes that old reproach, of long service ill-requited, yet speaks almost as plainly as the voice that “rebuked the madness of the prophet!”
the cheap jack’s white horse had a point of resemblance to the “genteel human beings” of whom he had been speaking. it had “come of a good stock,” and had seen better and kinder days; and to it, also, in its misfortunes, there remained that nobility of spirit which rises in proportion to the ills it meets with. the poor old thing was miserably weak, and sore and jaded, and the flints were torture. but it rallied its forces, gave a desperate struggle, and got the cart safely to the bottom of the hill. here the road turned sharply, and the horse went on. but after a few paces it stopped as before; this time in front of a small public-house, where trembling, and bathed in perspiration, it waited for its master.
the public-house was a small dark, dingy-looking hovel, with a reputation fitted to its appearance.
a dirty, grim-looking man nodded to the cheap jack and george as they entered, and a girl equally dirty, but much handsomer, brought glasses of spirits, to which the friends applied themselves, at the cheap jack’s expense. george grew more sociable, and the cheap jack reproached him with want of confidence in his friends.
“you’re so precious sharp, my dear,” said the hunchback, who knew well on what point george liked to be flattered, “that you overreaches yourself. i don’t complain—after all the business we’ve done together—that it’s turned slack all of a sudden. you says they’re down on you, and that’s enough for me. i don’t complain that you’ve got your own plans and keeps ’em as secret as the grave, but i says you’ll regret it. if you was a good scholar, george, you could do without friends, you’re so precious sharp. but you’re no scholar, my dear, and you’ll be let in yet, by a worse friend than cheap john.”
george so bitterly regretted his want of common learning, and the stupidity which made him still slow to decipher print, and utterly puzzled by writing, that the cheap jack’s remarks told strongly. these, and the conversation they had had on the hill, recalled to his mind a matter which was still a mystery to the miller’s man.
“look here, jack,” said he, leaning across the dirty little table; “if you be such a good scholar, what do m o e r d y k spell?”
“say it again, george,” said the dwarf. but when, after that, he still looked puzzled, george laughed long and loudly.
“you be a good scholar!” he cried. “you be a fine friend, too, for a iggerant man. if a can’t tell the first word of a letter, ’tis likely ’ee could read the whole, too!”
“the first word of a letter, eh?” said the dwarf.
“the very first,” said george. “’tis a long way you’d get in it, and stuck at the start!”
“up in the corner, at the top, eh?” said the dwarf.
“so it be,” said george, and he laughed no longer.
“it’s the name of a place, then,” said the cheap jack; “and it ain’t to be expected i should know the names of all the places in the world, george, my dear.”
it was a great triumph for the cheap jack, as george’s face betrayed. if george had trusted him a little more, he might have known the meaning of the mysterious word years ago. the name of a place! the place from which the letter was written. the place where something might be learned about the writer of the letter, and of the gentleman to whom it was written. for george knew so much. it was written to a gentleman, and to a gentleman who had money, and who had secrets; and, therefore, a gentleman from whom money might be got, by interfering in his secrets.
the miller’s man was very ignorant and very stupid, in spite of a certain low cunning not at all incompatible with gross ignorance. he had no knowledge of the world. his very knowledge of malpractices and mischief was confined to the evil doings of one or two other ill-conditioned country lads like himself, who robbed their neighbors on dark nights, and disposed of the spoil by the help of such men as the cheap jack and the landlord of the public-house at the bottom of the hill.
but by loitering about on that stormy night years ago, when he should have been attending to the mill, he had picked up enough to show him that the strange gentleman had no mind to have his proceedings as to the little jan generally known. this and some sort of traditional idea that “sharp,” though penniless men had at times wrung a great deal of money from rich people, by threatening to betray their secrets, was the sole foundation of george’s hopes in connection with the letter. it was his very ignorance which hindered him from seeing the innumerable chances against his getting to know any thing important enough, even if he could use his information, to procure a bribe.
he had long given up the idea as hopeless, though he had kept the letter, but it revived when the cheap jack solved the puzzle which abel could not explain, and george finally promised to let his friend read the whole letter for him. he also allowed that it concerned jan, or that he supposed it to do so. he related jan’s history, and confessed that he had picked up the letter, which was being blown about near the mill, on the night of jan’s arrival.
in this statement there was some truth, and some falsehood; for in the opinion of the miller’s man, if your own interest obliged you to confide in a friend, it was at least wise to hedge the confidence by not telling all the truth, or by qualifying it with lies.
this mental process was, however, at least equally familiar to the cheap jack, and he did not hesitate, in his own mind, to feel sure that the letter had not been found, but stolen. in which he was farther from the truth than if he had simply believed george.
but then he was not in the neighborhood five years back, and, as it happened, he had never heard of the lost pocket-book.
