BROTHER JACOB


CHAPTER I


Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of
blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been
sufficiently considered.  How is the son of a British yeoman, who has
been fed principally on salt pork and yeast dumplings, to know that there
is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise of glass jars full of
sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that the tedium of life can reach
a pitch where plum-buns at discretion cease to offer the slightest
excitement?  Or how, at the tender age when a confectioner seems to him a
very prince whom all the world must envy--who breakfasts on macaroons,
dines on meringues, sups on twelfth-cake, and fills up the intermediate
hours with sugar-candy or peppermint--how is he to foresee the day of sad
wisdom, when he will discern that the confectioner's calling is not
socially influential, or favourable to a soaring ambition?  I have known
a man who turned out to have a metaphysical genius, incautiously, in the
period of youthful buoyancy, commence his career as a dancing-master; and
you may imagine the use that was made of this initial mistake by
opponents who felt themselves bound to warn the public against his
doctrine of the Inconceivable.  He could not give up his dancing-lessons,
because he made his bread by them, and metaphysics would not have found
him in so much as salt to his bread.  It was really the same with Mr.
David Faux and the confectionery business.  His uncle, the butler at the
great house close by Brigford, had made a pet of him in his early
boyhood, and it was on a visit to this uncle that the confectioners'
shops in that brilliant town had, on a single day, fired his tender
imagination.  He carried home the pleasing illusion that a confectioner
must be at once the happiest and the foremost of men, since the things he
made were not only the most beautiful to behold, but the very best
eating, and such as the Lord Mayor must always order largely for his
private recreation; so that when his father declared he must be put to a
trade, David chose his line without a moment's hesitation; and, with a
rashness inspired by a sweet tooth, wedded himself irrevocably to
confectionery.  Soon, however, the tooth lost its relish and fell into
blank indifference; and all the while, his mind expanded, his ambition
took new shapes, which could hardly be satisfied within the sphere his
youthful ardour had chosen.  But what was he to do?  He was a young man
of much mental activity, and, above all, gifted with a spirit of
contrivance; but then, his faculties would not tell with great effect in
any other medium than that of candied sugars, conserves, and pastry.  Say
what you will about the identity of the reasoning process in all branches
of thought, or about the advantage of coming to subjects with a fresh
mind, the adjustment of butter to flour, and of heat to pastry, is _not_
the best preparation for the office of prime minister; besides, in the
present imperfectly-organized state of society, there are social
barriers.  David could invent delightful things in the way of drop-cakes,
and he had the widest views of the sugar department; but in other
directions he certainly felt hampered by the want of knowledge and
practical skill; and the world is so inconveniently constituted, that the
vague consciousness of being a fine fellow is no guarantee of success in
any line of business.

This difficulty pressed with some severity on Mr. David Faux, even before
his apprenticeship was ended.  His soul swelled with an impatient sense
that he ought to become something very remarkable--that it was quite out
of the question for him to put up with a narrow lot as other men did: he
scorned the idea that he could accept an average.  He was sure there was
nothing average about him: even such a person as Mrs. Tibbits, the washer-
woman, perceived it, and probably had a preference for his linen.  At
that particular period he was weighing out gingerbread nuts; but such an
anomaly could not continue.  No position could be suited to Mr. David
Faux that was not in the highest degree easy to the flesh and flattering
to the spirit.  If he had fallen on the present times, and enjoyed the
advantages of a Mechanic's Institute, he would certainly have taken to
literature and have written reviews; but his education had not been
liberal.  He had read some novels from the adjoining circulating library,
and had even bought the story of _Inkle and Yarico_, which had made him
feel very sorry for poor Mr. Inkle; so that his ideas might not have been
below a certain mark of the literary calling; but his spelling and
diction were too unconventional.

When a man is not adequately appreciated or comfortably placed in his own
country, his thoughts naturally turn towards foreign climes; and David's
imagination circled round and round the utmost limits of his geographical
knowledge, in search of a country where a young gentleman of pasty
visage, lipless mouth, and stumpy hair, would be likely to be received
with the hospitable enthusiasm which he had a right to expect.  Having a
general idea of America as a country where the population was chiefly
black, it appeared to him the most propitious destination for an emigrant
who, to begin with, had the broad and easily recognizable merit of
whiteness; and this idea gradually took such strong possession of him
that Satan seized the opportunity of suggesting to him that he might
emigrate under easier circumstances, if he supplied himself with a little
money from his master's till.  But that evil spirit, whose understanding,
I am convinced, has been much overrated, quite wasted his time on this
occasion.  David would certainly have liked well to have some of his
master's money in his pocket, if he had been sure his master would have
been the only man to suffer for it; but he was a cautious youth, and
quite determined to run no risks on his own account.  So he stayed out
his apprenticeship, and committed no act of dishonesty that was at all
likely to be discovered, reserving his plan of emigration for a future
opportunity.  And the circumstances under which he carried it out were in
this wise.  Having been at home a week or two partaking of the family
beans, he had used his leisure in ascertaining a fact which was of
considerable importance to him, namely, that his mother had a small sum
in guineas painfully saved from her maiden perquisites, and kept in the
corner of a drawer where her baby-linen had reposed for the last twenty
years--ever since her son David had taken to his feet, with a slight
promise of bow-legs which had not been altogether unfulfilled.  Mr. Faux,
senior, had told his son very frankly, that he must not look to being set
up in business by _him_: with seven sons, and one of them a very healthy
and well-developed idiot, who consumed a dumpling about eight inches in
diameter every day, it was pretty well if they got a hundred apiece at
his death.  Under these circumstances, what was David to do?  It was
certainly hard that he should take his mother's money; but he saw no
other ready means of getting any, and it was not to be expected that a
young man of his merit should put up with inconveniences that could be
avoided.  Besides, it is not robbery to take property belonging to your
mother: she doesn't prosecute you.  And David was very well behaved to
his mother; he comforted her by speaking highly of himself to her, and
assuring her that he never fell into the vices he saw practised by other
youths of his own age, and that he was particularly fond of honesty.  If
his mother would have given him her twenty guineas as a reward of this
noble disposition, he really would not have stolen them from her, and it
would have been more agreeable to his feelings.  Nevertheless, to an
active mind like David's, ingenuity is not without its pleasures: it was
rather an interesting occupation to become stealthily acquainted with the
wards of his mother's simple key (not in the least like Chubb's patent),
and to get one that would do its work equally well; and also to arrange a
little drama by which he would escape suspicion, and run no risk of
forfeiting the prospective hundred at his father's death, which would be
convenient in the improbable case of his _not_ making a large fortune in
the "Indies."

First, he spoke freely of his intention to start shortly for Liverpool
and take ship for America; a resolution which cost his good mother some
pain, for, after Jacob the idiot, there was not one of her sons to whom
her heart clung more than to her youngest-born, David.  Next, it appeared
to him that Sunday afternoon, when everybody was gone to church except
Jacob and the cowboy, was so singularly favourable an opportunity for
sons who wanted to appropriate their mothers' guineas, that he half
thought it must have been kindly intended by Providence for such
purposes.  Especially the third Sunday in Lent; because Jacob had been
out on one of his occasional wanderings for the last two days; and David,
being a timid young man, had a considerable dread and hatred of Jacob, as
of a large personage who went about habitually with a pitchfork in his
hand.

Nothing could be easier, then, than for David on this Sunday afternoon to
decline going to church, on the ground that he was going to tea at Mr.
Lunn's, whose pretty daughter Sally had been an early flame of his, and,
when the church-goers were at a safe distance, to abstract the guineas
from their wooden box and slip them into a small canvas bag--nothing
easier than to call to the cowboy that he was going, and tell him to keep
an eye on the house for fear of Sunday tramps.  David thought it would be
easy, too, to get to a small thicket and bury his bag in a hole he had
already made and covered up under the roots of an old hollow ash, and he
had, in fact, found the hole without a moment's difficulty, had uncovered
it, and was about gently to drop the bag into it, when the sound of a
large body rustling towards him with something like a bellow was such a
surprise to David, who, as a gentleman gifted with much contrivance, was
naturally only prepared for what he expected, that instead of dropping
the bag gently he let it fall so as to make it untwist and vomit forth
the shining guineas.  In the same moment he looked up and saw his dear
brother Jacob close upon him, holding the pitchfork so that the bright
smooth prongs were a yard in advance of his own body, and about a foot
off David's.  (A learned friend, to whom I once narrated this history,
observed that it was David's guilt which made these prongs formidable,
and that the "mens nil conscia sibi" strips a pitchfork of all terrors.  I
thought this idea so valuable, that I obtained his leave to use it on
condition of suppressing his name.)  Nevertheless, David did not entirely
lose his presence of mind; for in that case he would have sunk on the
earth or started backward; whereas he kept his ground and smiled at
Jacob, who nodded his head up and down, and said, "Hoich, Zavy!" in a
painfully equivocal manner.  David's heart was beating audibly, and if he
had had any lips they would have been pale; but his mental activity,
instead of being paralysed, was stimulated.  While he was inwardly
praying (he always prayed when he was much frightened)--"Oh, save me this
once, and I'll never get into danger again!"--he was thrusting his hand
into his pocket in search of a box of yellow lozenges, which he had
brought with him from Brigford among other delicacies of the same
portable kind, as a means of conciliating proud beauty, and more
particularly the beauty of Miss Sarah Lunn.  Not one of these delicacies
had he ever offered to poor Jacob, for David was not a young man to waste
his jujubes and barley-sugar in giving pleasure to people from whom he
expected nothing.  But an idiot with equivocal intentions and a pitchfork
is as well worth flattering and cajoling as if he were Louis Napoleon.  So
David, with a promptitude equal to the occasion, drew out his box of
yellow lozenges, lifted the lid, and performed a pantomime with his mouth
and fingers, which was meant to imply that he was delighted to see his
dear brother Jacob, and seized the opportunity of making him a small
present, which he would find particularly agreeable to the taste.  Jacob,
you understand, was not an intense idiot, but within a certain limited
range knew how to choose the good and reject the evil: he took one
lozenge, by way of test, and sucked it as if he had been a philosopher;
then, in as great an ecstacy at its new and complex savour as Caliban at
the taste of Trinculo's wine, chuckled and stroked this suddenly
beneficent brother, and held out his hand for more; for, except in fits
of anger, Jacob was not ferocious or needlessly predatory.  David's
courage half returned, and he left off praying; pouring a dozen lozenges
into Jacob's palm, and trying to look very fond of him.  He congratulated
himself that he had formed the plan of going to see Miss Sally Lunn this
afternoon, and that, as a consequence, he had brought with him these
propitiatory delicacies: he was certainly a lucky fellow; indeed, it was
always likely Providence should be fonder of him than of other
apprentices, and since he _was_ to be interrupted, why, an idiot was
preferable to any other sort of witness.  For the first time in his life,
David thought he saw the advantage of idiots.

As for Jacob, he had thrust his pitchfork into the ground, and had thrown
himself down beside it, in thorough abandonment to the unprecedented
pleasure of having five lozenges in his mouth at once, blinking
meanwhile, and making inarticulate sounds of gustative content.  He had
not yet given any sign of noticing the guineas, but in seating himself he
had laid his broad right hand on them, and unconsciously kept it in that
position, absorbed in the sensations of his palate.  If he could only be
kept so occupied with the lozenges as not to see the guineas before David
could manage to cover them!  That was David's best hope of safety; for
Jacob knew his mother's guineas; it had been part of their common
experience as boys to be allowed to look at these handsome coins, and
rattle them in their box on high days and holidays, and among all Jacob's
narrow experiences as to money, this was likely to be the most memorable.

"Here, Jacob," said David, in an insinuating tone, handing the box to
him, "I'll give 'em all to you.  Run!--make haste!--else somebody'll come
and take 'em."

David, not having studied the psychology of idiots, was not aware that
they are not to be wrought upon by imaginative fears.  Jacob took the box
with his left hand, but saw no necessity for running away.  Was ever a
promising young man wishing to lay the foundation of his fortune by
appropriating his mother's guineas obstructed by such a day-mare as this?
But the moment must come when Jacob would move his right hand to draw off
the lid of the tin box, and then David would sweep the guineas into the
hole with the utmost address and swiftness, and immediately seat himself
upon them.  Ah, no!  It's of no use to have foresight when you are
dealing with an idiot: he is not to be calculated upon.  Jacob's right
hand was given to vague clutching and throwing; it suddenly clutched the
guineas as if they had been so many pebbles, and was raised in an
attitude which promised to scatter them like seed over a distant bramble,
when, from some prompting or other--probably of an unwonted sensation--it
paused, descended to Jacob's knee, and opened slowly under the inspection
of Jacob's dull eyes.  David began to pray again, but immediately
desisted--another resource having occurred to him.

"Mother! zinnies!" exclaimed the innocent Jacob.  Then, looking at David,
he said, interrogatively, "Box?"

"Hush! hush!" said David, summoning all his ingenuity in this severe
strait.  "See, Jacob!"  He took the tin box from his brother's hand, and
emptied it of the lozenges, returning half of them to Jacob, but secretly
keeping the rest in his own hand.  Then he held out the empty box, and
said, "Here's the box, Jacob!  The box for the guineas!" gently sweeping
them from Jacob's palm into the box.

This procedure was not objectionable to Jacob; on the contrary, the
guineas clinked so pleasantly as they fell, that he wished for a
repetition of the sound, and seizing the box, began to rattle it very
gleefully.  David, seizing the opportunity, deposited his reserve of
lozenges in the ground and hastily swept some earth over them.  "Look,
Jacob!" he said, at last.  Jacob paused from his clinking, and looked
into the hole, while David began to scratch away the earth, as if in
doubtful expectation.  When the lozenges were laid bare, he took them out
one by one, and gave them to Jacob.  "Hush!" he said, in a loud whisper,
"Tell nobody--all for Jacob--hush--sh--sh!  Put guineas in the
hole--they'll come out like this!"  To make the lesson more complete, he
took a guinea, and lowering it into the hole, said, "Put in _so_."  Then,
as he took the last lozenge out, he said, "Come out _so_," and put the
lozenge into Jacob's hospitable mouth.

Jacob turned his head on one side, looked first at his brother and then
at the hole, like a reflective monkey, and, finally, laid the box of
guineas in the hole with much decision.  David made haste to add every
one of the stray coins, put on the lid, and covered it well with earth,
saying in his meet coaxing tone--

"Take 'm out to-morrow, Jacob; all for Jacob!  Hush--sh--sh!"

Jacob, to whom this once indifferent brother had all at once become a
sort of sweet-tasted fetish, stroked David's best coat with his adhesive
fingers, and then hugged him with an accompaniment of that mingled
chuckling and gurgling by which he was accustomed to express the milder
passions.  But if he had chosen to bite a small morsel out of his
beneficent brother's cheek, David would have been obliged to bear it.

And here I must pause, to point out to you the short-sightedness of human
contrivance.  This ingenious young man, Mr. David Faux, thought he had
achieved a triumph of cunning when he had associated himself in his
brother's rudimentary mind with the flavour of yellow lozenges.  But he
had yet to learn that it is a dreadful thing to make an idiot fond of
you, when you yourself are not of an affectionate disposition: especially
an idiot with a pitchfork--obviously a difficult friend to shake off by
rough usage.

It may seem to you rather a blundering contrivance for a clever young man
to bury the guineas.  But, if everything had turned out as David had
calculated, you would have seen that his plan was worthy of his talents.
The guineas would have lain safely in the earth while the theft was
discovered, and David, with the calm of conscious innocence, would have
lingered at home, reluctant to say good-bye to his dear mother while she
was in grief about her guineas; till at length, on the eve of his
departure, he would have disinterred them in the strictest privacy, and
carried them on his own person without inconvenience.  But David, you
perceive, had reckoned without his host, or, to speak more precisely,
without his idiot brother--an item of so uncertain and fluctuating a
character, that I doubt whether he would not have puzzled the astute
heroes of M. de Balzac, whose foresight is so remarkably at home in the
future.

It was clear to David now that he had only one alternative before him: he
must either renounce the guineas, by quietly putting them back in his
mother's drawer (a course not unattended with difficulty); or he must
leave more than a suspicion behind him, by departing early the next
morning without giving notice, and with the guineas in his pocket.  For
if he gave notice that he was going, his mother, he knew, would insist on
fetching from her box of guineas the three she had always promised him as
his share; indeed, in his original plan, he had counted on this as a
means by which the theft would be discovered under circumstances that
would themselves speak for his innocence; but now, as I need hardly
explain, that well-combined plan was completely frustrated.  Even if
David could have bribed Jacob with perpetual lozenges, an idiot's secrecy
is itself betrayal.  He dared not even go to tea at Mr. Lunn's, for in
that case he would have lost sight of Jacob, who, in his impatience for
the crop of lozenges, might scratch up the box again while he was absent,
and carry it home--depriving him at once of reputation and guineas.  No!
he must think of nothing all the rest of this day, but of coaxing Jacob
and keeping him out of mischief.  It was a fatiguing and anxious evening
to David; nevertheless, he dared not go to sleep without tying a piece of
string to his thumb and great toe, to secure his frequent waking; for he
meant to be up with the first peep of dawn, and be far out of reach
before breakfast-time.  His father, he thought, would certainly cut him
off with a shilling; but what then?  Such a striking young man as he
would be sure to be well received in the West Indies: in foreign
countries there are always openings--even for cats.  It was probable that
some Princess Yarico would want him to marry her, and make him presents
of very large jewels beforehand; after which, he needn't marry her unless
he liked.  David had made up his mind not to steal any more, even from
people who were fond of him: it was an unpleasant way of making your
fortune in a world where you were likely to surprised in the act by
brothers.  Such alarms did not agree with David's constitution, and he
had felt so much nausea this evening that no doubt his liver was
affected.  Besides, he would have been greatly hurt not to be thought
well of in the world: he always meant to make a figure, and be thought
worthy of the best seats and the best morsels.

Ruminating to this effect on the brilliant future in reserve for him,
David by the help of his check-string kept himself on the alert to seize
the time of earliest dawn for his rising and departure.  His brothers, of
course, were early risers, but he should anticipate them by at least an
hour and a half, and the little room which he had to himself as only an
occasional visitor, had its window over the horse-block, so that he could
slip out through the window without the least difficulty.  Jacob, the
horrible Jacob, had an awkward trick of getting up before everybody else,
to stem his hunger by emptying the milk-bowl that was "duly set" for him;
but of late he had taken to sleeping in the hay-loft, and if he came into
the house, it would be on the opposite side to that from which David was
making his exit.  There was no need to think of Jacob; yet David was
liberal enough to bestow a curse on him--it was the only thing he ever
did bestow gratuitously.  His small bundle of clothes was ready packed,
and he was soon treading lightly on the steps of the horse-block, soon
walking at a smart pace across the fields towards the thicket.  It would
take him no more than two minutes to get out the box; he could make out
the tree it was under by the pale strip where the bark was off, although
the dawning light was rather dimmer in the thicket.  But what, in the
name of--burnt pastry--was that large body with a staff planted beside
it, close at the foot of the ash-tree?  David paused, not to make up his
mind as to the nature of the apparition--he had not the happiness of
doubting for a moment that the staff was Jacob's pitchfork--but to gather
the self-command necessary for addressing his brother with a sufficiently
honeyed accent.  Jacob was absorbed in scratching up the earth, and had
not heard David's approach.

"I say, Jacob," said David in a loud whisper, just as the tin box was
lifted out of the hole.

Jacob looked up, and discerning his sweet-flavoured brother, nodded and
grinned in the dim light in a way that made him seem to David like a
triumphant demon.  If he had been of an impetuous disposition, he would
have snatched the pitchfork from the ground and impaled this fraternal
demon.  But David was by no means impetuous; he was a young man greatly
given to calculate consequences, a habit which has been held to be the
foundation of virtue.  But somehow it had not precisely that effect in
David: he calculated whether an action would harm himself, or whether it
would only harm other people.  In the former case he was very timid about
satisfying his immediate desires, but in the latter he would risk the
result with much courage.

"Give it me, Jacob," he said, stooping down and patting his brother.  "Let
us see."

Jacob, finding the lid rather tight, gave the box to his brother in
perfect faith.  David raised the lids and shook his head, while Jacob put
his finger in and took out a guinea to taste whether the metamorphosis
into lozenges was complete and satisfactory.

"No, Jacob; too soon, too soon," said David, when the guinea had been
tasted.  "Give it me; we'll go and bury it somewhere else; we'll put it
in yonder," he added, pointing vaguely toward the distance.

David screwed on the lid, while Jacob, looking grave, rose and grasped
his pitchfork.  Then, seeing David's bundle, he snatched it, like a too
officious Newfoundland, stuck his pitchfork into it and carried it over
his shoulder in triumph as he accompanied David and the box out of the
thicket.

What on earth was David to do?  It would have been easy to frown at
Jacob, and kick him, and order him to get away; but David dared as soon
have kicked the bull.  Jacob was quiet as long as he was treated
indulgently; but on the slightest show of anger, he became unmanageable,
and was liable to fits of fury which would have made him formidable even
without his pitchfork.  There was no mastery to be obtained over him
except by kindness or guile.  David tried guile.

"Go, Jacob," he said, when they were out of the thicket--pointing towards
the house as he spoke; "go and fetch me a spade--a spade.  But give _me_
the bundle," he added, trying to reach it from the fork, where it hung
high above Jacob's tall shoulder.

But Jacob showed as much alacrity in obeying as a wasp shows in leaving a
sugar-basin.  Near David, he felt himself in the vicinity of lozenges: he
chuckled and rubbed his brother's back, brandishing the bundle higher out
of reach.  David, with an inward groan, changed his tactics, and walked
on as fast as he could.  It was not safe to linger.  Jacob would get
tired of following him, or, at all events, could be eluded.  If they
could once get to the distant highroad, a coach would overtake them,
David would mount it, having previously by some ingenious means secured
his bundle, and then Jacob might howl and flourish his pitchfork as much
as he liked.  Meanwhile he was under the fatal necessity of being very
kind to this ogre, and of providing a large breakfast for him when they
stopped at a roadside inn.  It was already three hours since they had
started, and David was tired.  Would no coach be coming up soon? he
inquired.  No coach for the next two hours.  But there was a carrier's
cart to come immediately, on its way to the next town.  If he could slip
out, even leaving his bundle behind, and get into the cart without Jacob!
But there was a new obstacle.  Jacob had recently discovered a remnant of
sugar-candy in one of his brother's tail-pockets; and, since then, had
cautiously kept his hold on that limb of the garment, perhaps with an
expectation that there would be a further development of sugar-candy
after a longer or shorter interval.  Now every one who has worn a coat
will understand the sensibilities that must keep a man from starting away
in a hurry when there is a grasp on his coat-tail.  David looked forward
to being well received among strangers, but it might make a difference if
he had only one tail to his coat.

He felt himself in a cold perspiration.  He could walk no more: he must
get into the cart and let Jacob get in with him.  Presently a cheering
idea occurred to him: after so large a breakfast, Jacob would be sure to
go to sleep in the cart; you see at once that David meant to seize his
bundle, jump out, and be free.  His expectation was partly fulfilled:
Jacob did go to sleep in the cart, but it was in a peculiar attitude--it
was with his arms tightly fastened round his dear brother's body; and if
ever David attempted to move, the grasp tightened with the force of an
affectionate boa-constrictor.

"Th' innicent's fond on you," observed the carrier, thinking that David
was probably an amiable brother, and wishing to pay him a compliment.

David groaned.  The ways of thieving were not ways of pleasantness.  Oh,
why had he an idiot brother?  Oh, why, in general, was the world so
constituted that a man could not take his mother's guineas comfortably?
David became grimly speculative.

Copious dinner at noon for Jacob; but little dinner, because little
appetite, for David.  Instead of eating, he plied Jacob with beer; for
through this liberality he descried a hope.  Jacob fell into a dead
sleep, at last, without having his arms round David, who paid the
reckoning, took his bundle, and walked off.  In another half-hour he was
on the coach on his way to Liverpool, smiling the smile of the triumphant
wicked.  He was rid of Jacob--he was bound for the Indies, where a
gullible princess awaited him.  He would never steal any more, but there
would be no need; he would show himself so deserving, that people would
make him presents freely.  He must give up the notion of his father's
legacy; but it was not likely he would ever want that trifle; and even if
he did--why, it was a compensation to think that in being for ever
divided from his family he was divided from Jacob, more terrible than
Gorgon or Demogorgon to David's timid green eyes.  Thank heaven, he
should never see Jacob any more!




CHAPTER II


It was nearly six years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the
West Indies, that the vacant shop in the market-place at Grimworth was
understood to have been let to the stranger with a sallow complexion and
a buff cravat, whose first appearance had caused some excitement in the
bar of the Woolpack, where he had called to wait for the coach.

Grimworth, to a discerning eye, was a good place to set up shopkeeping
in.  There was no competition in it at present; the Church-people had
their own grocer and draper; the Dissenters had theirs; and the two or
three butchers found a ready market for their joints without strict
reference to religious persuasion--except that the rector's wife had
given a general order for the veal sweet-breads and the mutton kidneys,
while Mr. Rodd, the Baptist minister, had requested that, so far as was
compatible with the fair accommodation of other customers, the sheep's
trotters might be reserved for him.  And it was likely to be a growing
place, for the trustees of Mr. Zephaniah Crypt's Charity, under the
stimulus of a late visitation by commissioners, were beginning to apply
long-accumulating funds to the rebuilding of the Yellow Coat School,
which was henceforth to be carried forward on a greatly-extended scale,
the testator having left no restrictions concerning the curriculum, but
only concerning the coat.

The shopkeepers at Grimworth were by no means unanimous as to the
advantages promised by this prospect of increased population and trading,
being substantial men, who liked doing a quiet business in which they
were sure of their customers, and could calculate their returns to a
nicety.  Hitherto, it had been held a point of honour by the families in
Grimworth parish, to buy their sugar and their flannel at the shop where
their fathers and mothers had bought before them; but, if newcomers were
to bring in the system of neck-and-neck trading, and solicit feminine
eyes by gown-pieces laid in fan-like folds, and surmounted by artificial
flowers, giving them a factitious charm (for on what human figure would a
gown sit like a fan, or what female head was like a bunch of
China-asters?), or, if new grocers were to fill their windows with
mountains of currants and sugar, made seductive by contrast and
tickets,--what security was there for Grimworth, that a vagrant spirit in
shopping, once introduced, would not in the end carry the most important
families to the larger market town of Cattleton, where, business being
done on a system of small profits and quick returns, the fashions were of
the freshest, and goods of all kinds might be bought at an advantage?

With this view of the times predominant among the tradespeople at
Grimworth, their uncertainty concerning the nature of the business which
the sallow-complexioned stranger was about to set up in the vacant shop,
naturally gave some additional strength to the fears of the less
sanguine.  If he was going to sell drapery, it was probable that a pale-
faced fellow like that would deal in showy and inferior articles--printed
cottons and muslins which would leave their dye in the wash-tub, jobbed
linen full of knots, and flannel that would soon look like gauze.  If
grocery, then it was to be hoped that no mother of a family would trust
the teas of an untried grocer.  Such things had been known in some
parishes as tradesmen going about canvassing for custom with cards in
their pockets: when people came from nobody knew where, there was no
knowing what they might do.  It was a thousand pities that Mr. Moffat,
the auctioneer and broker, had died without leaving anybody to follow him
in the business, and Mrs. Cleve's trustee ought to have known better than
to let a shop to a stranger.  Even the discovery that ovens were being
put up on the premises, and that the shop was, in fact, being fitted up
for a confectioner and pastry-cook's business, hitherto unknown in
Grimworth, did not quite suffice to turn the scale in the newcomer's
favour, though the landlady at the Woolpack defended him warmly, said he
seemed to be a very clever young man, and from what she could make out,
came of a very good family; indeed, was most likely a good many people's
betters.

It certainly made a blaze of light and colour, almost as if a rainbow had
suddenly descended into the market-place, when, one fine morning, the
shutters were taken down from the new shop, and the two windows displayed
their decorations.  On one side, there were the variegated tints of
collared and marbled meats, set off by bright green leaves, the pale
brown of glazed pies, the rich tones of sauces and bottled fruits
enclosed in their veil of glass--altogether a sight to bring tears into
the eyes of a Dutch painter; and on the other, there was a predominance
of the more delicate hues of pink, and white, and yellow, and buff, in
the abundant lozenges, candies, sweet biscuits and icings, which to the
eyes of a bilious person might easily have been blended into a faery
landscape in Turner's latest style.  What a sight to dawn upon the eyes
of Grimworth children!  They almost forgot to go to their dinner that
day, their appetites being preoccupied with imaginary sugar-plums; and I
think even Punch, setting up his tabernacle in the market-place, would
not have succeeded in drawing them away from those shop-windows, where
they stood according to gradations of size and strength, the biggest and
strongest being nearest the window, and the little ones in the outermost
rows lifting wide-open eyes and mouths towards the upper tier of jars,
like small birds at meal-time.

The elder inhabitants pished and pshawed a little at the folly of the new
shopkeeper in venturing on such an outlay in goods that would not keep;
to be sure, Christmas was coming, but what housewife in Grimworth would
not think shame to furnish forth her table with articles that were not
home-cooked?  No, no.  Mr. Edward Freely, as he called himself, was
deceived, if he thought Grimworth money was to flow into his pockets on
such terms.

Edward Freely was the name that shone in gilt letters on a mazarine
ground over the doorplace of the new shop--a generous-sounding name, that
might have belonged to the open-hearted, improvident hero of an old
comedy, who would have delighted in raining sugared almonds, like a new
manna-gift, among that small generation outside the windows.  But Mr.
Edward Freely was a man whose impulses were kept in due subordination: he
held that the desire for sweets and pastry must only be satisfied in a
direct ratio with the power of paying for them.  If the smallest child in
Grimworth would go to him with a halfpenny in its tiny fist, he would,
after ringing the halfpenny, deliver a just equivalent in "rock."  He was
not a man to cheat even the smallest child--he often said so, observing
at the same time that he loved honesty, and also that he was very tender-
hearted, though he didn't show his feelings as some people did.

Either in reward of such virtue, or according to some more hidden law of
sequence, Mr. Freely's business, in spite of prejudice, started under
favourable auspices.  For Mrs. Chaloner, the rector's wife, was among the
earliest customers at the shop, thinking it only right to encourage a new
parishioner who had made a decorous appearance at church; and she found
Mr. Freely a most civil, obliging young man, and intelligent to a
surprising degree for a confectioner; well-principled, too, for in giving
her useful hints about choosing sugars he had thrown much light on the
dishonesty of other tradesmen.  Moreover, he had been in the West Indies,
and had seen the very estate which had been her poor grandfather's
property; and he said the missionaries were the only cause of the negro's
discontent--an observing young man, evidently.  Mrs. Chaloner ordered
wine-biscuits and olives, and gave Mr. Freely to understand that she
should find his shop a great convenience.  So did the doctor's wife, and
so did Mrs. Gate, at the large carding-mill, who, having high connexions
frequently visiting her, might be expected to have a large consumption of
ratafias and macaroons.

The less aristocratic matrons of Grimworth seemed likely at first to
justify their husbands' confidence that they would never pay a percentage
of profits on drop-cakes, instead of making their own, or get up a hollow
show of liberal housekeeping by purchasing slices of collared meat when a
neighbour came in for supper.  But it is my task to narrate the gradual
corruption of Grimworth manners from their primitive simplicity--a
melancholy task, if it were not cheered by the prospect of the fine
peripateia or downfall by which the progress of the corruption was
ultimately checked.

It was young Mrs. Steene, the veterinary surgeons wife, who first gave
way to temptation.  I fear she had been rather over-educated for her
station in life, for she knew by heart many passages in _Lalla Rookh_,
the _Corsair_, and the _Siege of Corinth_, which had given her a distaste
for domestic occupations, and caused her a withering disappointment at
the discovery that Mr. Steene, since his marriage, had lost all interest
in the "bulbul," openly preferred discussing the nature of spavin with a
coarse neighbour, and was angry if the pudding turned out watery--indeed,
was simply a top-booted "vet.", who came in hungry at dinner-time; and
not in the least like a nobleman turned Corsair out of pure scorn for his
race, or like a renegade with a turban and crescent, unless it were in
the irritability of his temper.  And scorn is such a very different thing
in top-boots!

This brutal man had invited a supper-party for Christmas eve, when he
would expect to see mince-pies on the table.  Mrs. Steene had prepared
her mince-meat, and had devoted much butter, fine flour, and labour, to
the making of a batch of pies in the morning; but they proved to be so
very heavy when they came out of the oven, that she could only think with
trembling of the moment when her husband should catch sight of them on
the supper-table.  He would storm at her, she was certain; and before all
the company; and then she should never help crying: it was so dreadful to
think she had come to that, after the bulbul and everything!  Suddenly
the thought darted through her mind that _this once_ she might send for a
dish of mince-pies from Freely's: she knew he had some.  But what was to
become of the eighteen heavy mince-pies?  Oh, it was of no use thinking
about that; it was very expensive--indeed, making mince-pies at all was a
great expense, when they were not sure to turn out well: it would be much
better to buy them ready-made.  You paid a little more for them, but
there was no risk of waste.

Such was the sophistry with which this misguided young woman--enough.
Mrs. Steene sent for the mince-pies, and, I am grieved to add, garbled
her household accounts in order to conceal the fact from her husband.
This was the second step in a downward course, all owing to a young
woman's being out of harmony with her circumstances, yearning after
renegades and bulbuls, and being subject to claims from a veterinary
surgeon fond of mince-pies.  The third step was to harden herself by
telling the fact of the bought mince-pies to her intimate friend Mrs.
Mole, who had already guessed it, and who subsequently encouraged herself
in buying a mould of jelly, instead of exerting her own skill, by the
reflection that "other people" did the same sort of thing.  The infection
spread; soon there was a party or clique in Grimworth on the side of
"buying at Freely's"; and many husbands, kept for some time in the dark
on this point, innocently swallowed at two mouthfuls a tart on which they
were paying a profit of a hundred per cent., and as innocently encouraged
a fatal disingenuousness in the partners of their bosoms by praising the
pastry.  Others, more keen-sighted, winked at the too frequent
presentation on washing-days, and at impromptu suppers, of superior
spiced-beef, which flattered their palates more than the cold remnants
they had formerly been contented with.  Every housewife who had once
"bought at Freely's" felt a secret joy when she detected a similar
perversion in her neighbour's practice, and soon only two or three old-
fashioned mistresses of families held out in the protest against the
growing demoralization, saying to their neighbours who came to sup with
them, "I can't offer you Freely's beef, or Freely's cheesecakes;
everything in our house is home-made; I'm afraid you'll hardly have any
appetite for our plain pastry."  The doctor, whose cook was not
satisfactory, the curate, who kept no cook, and the mining agent, who was
a great _bon vivant_, even began to rely on Freely for the greater part
of their dinner, when they wished to give an entertainment of some
brilliancy.  In short, the business of manufacturing the more fanciful
viands was fast passing out of the hinds of maids and matrons in private
families, and was becoming the work of a special commercial organ.

I am not ignorant that this sort of thing is called the inevitable course
of civilization, division of labour, and so forth, and that the maids and
matrons may be said to have had their hands set free from cookery to add
to the wealth of society in some other way.  Only it happened at
Grimworth, which, to be sure, was a low place, that the maids and matrons
could do nothing with their hands at all better than cooking: not even
those who had always made heavy cakes and leathery pastry.  And so it
came to pass, that the progress of civilization at Grimworth was not
otherwise apparent than in the impoverishment of men, the gossiping
idleness of women, and the heightening prosperity of Mr. Edward Freely.

The Yellow Coat School was a double source of profit to the calculating
confectioner; for he opened an eating-room for the superior workmen
employed on the new school, and he accommodated the pupils at the old
school by giving great attention to the fancy-sugar department.  When I
think of the sweet-tasted swans and other ingenious white shapes crunched
by the small teeth of that rising generation, I am glad to remember that
a certain amount of calcareous food has been held good for young
creatures whose bones are not quite formed; for I have observed these
delicacies to have an inorganic flavour which would have recommended them
greatly to that young lady of the _Spectator's_ acquaintance who
habitually made her dessert on the stems of tobacco-pipes.

As for the confectioner himself, he made his way gradually into Grimworth
homes, as his commodities did, in spite of some initial repugnance.
Somehow or other, his reception as a guest seemed a thing that required
justifying, like the purchasing of his pastry.  In the first place, he
was a stranger, and therefore open to suspicion; secondly, the
confectionery business was so entirely new at Grimworth, that its place
in the scale of rank had not been distinctly ascertained.  There was no
doubt about drapers and grocers, when they came of good old Grimworth
families, like Mr. Luff and Mr. Prettyman: they visited with the
Palfreys, who farmed their own land, played many a game at whist with the
doctor, and condescended a little towards the timber-merchant, who had
lately taken to the coal-trade also, and had got new furniture; but
whether a confectioner should be admitted to this higher level of
respectability, or should be understood to find his associates among
butchers and bakers, was a new question on which tradition threw no
light.  His being a bachelor was in his favour, and would perhaps have
been enough to turn the scale, even if Mr. Edward Freely's other personal
pretensions had been of an entirely insignificant cast.  But so far from
this, it very soon appeared that he was a remarkable young man, who had
been in the West Indies, and had seen many wonders by sea and land, so
that he could charm the ears of Grimworth Desdemonas with stories of
strange fishes, especially sharks, which he had stabbed in the nick of
time by bravely plunging overboard just as the monster was turning on his
side to devour the cook's mate; of terrible fevers which he had undergone
in a land where the wind blows from all quarters at once; of rounds of
toast cut straight from the breadfruit trees; of toes bitten off by land-
crabs; of large honours that had been offered to him as a man who knew
what was what, and was therefore particularly needed in a tropical
climate; and of a Creole heiress who had wept bitterly at his departure.
Such conversational talents as these, we know, will overcome
disadvantages of complexion; and young Towers, whose cheeks were of the
finest pink, set off by a fringe of dark whisker, was quite eclipsed by
the presence of the sallow Mr. Freely.  So exceptional a confectioner
elevated the business, and might well begin to make disengaged hearts
flutter a little.

Fathers and mothers were naturally more slow and cautious in their
recognition of the newcomer's merits.

"He's an amusing fellow," said Mr. Prettyman, the highly respectable
grocer.  (Mrs. Prettyman was a Miss Fothergill, and her sister had