parish, he should know all that was to be known about this "interloper."
Grimworth would have people coming from Botany Bay to settle in it, if
things went on in this way.

It soon appeared that Jacob could not be made to quit his dear brother
David except by force.  He understood, with a clearness equal to that of
the most intelligent mind, that Jonathan would take him back to skimmed
milk, apple-dumpling, broad beans, and pork.  And he had found a paradise
in his brother's shop.  It was a difficult matter to use force with
Jacob, for he wore heavy nailed boots; and if his pitchfork had been
mastered, he would have resorted without hesitation to kicks.  Nothing
short of using guile to bind him hand and foot would have made all
parties safe.

"Let him stay," said David, with desperate resignation, frightened above
all things at the idea of further disturbances in his shop, which would
make his exposure all the more conspicuous.  "_You_ go away again, and to-
morrow I can, perhaps, get him to go to Gilsbrook with me.  He'll follow
me fast enough, I daresay," he added, with a half-groan.

"Very well," said Jonathan, gruffly.  "I don't see why _you_ shouldn't
have some trouble and expense with him as well as the rest of us.  But
mind you bring him back safe and soon, else mother'll never rest."

On this arrangement being concluded, Mr. Prettyman begged Mr. Jonathan
Faux to go and take a snack with him, an invitation which was quite
acceptable; and as honest Jonathan had nothing to be ashamed of, it is
probable that he was very frank in his communications to the civil
draper, who, pursuing the benefit of the parish, hastened to make all the
information he could gather about Freely common parochial property.  You
may imagine that the meeting of the Club at the Woolpack that evening was
unusually lively.  Every member was anxious to prove that he had never
liked Freely, as he called himself.  Faux was his name, was it?  Fox
would have been more suitable.  The majority expressed a desire to see
him hooted out of the town.

Mr. Freely did not venture over his door-sill that day, for he knew Jacob
would keep at his side, and there was every probability that they would
have a train of juvenile followers.  He sent to engage the Woolpack gig
for an early hour the next morning; but this order was not kept
religiously a secret by the landlord.  Mr. Freely was informed that he
could not have the gig till seven; and the Grimworth people were early
risers.  Perhaps they were more alert than usual on this particular
morning; for when Jacob, with a bag of sweets in his hand, was induced to
mount the gig with his brother David, the inhabitants of the market-place
were looking out of their doors and windows, and at the turning of the
street there was even a muster of apprentices and schoolboys, who shouted
as they passed in what Jacob took to be a very merry and friendly way,
nodding and grinning in return.  "Huzzay, David Faux! how's your uncle?"
was their morning's greeting.  Like other pointed things, it was not
altogether impromptu.

Even this public derision was not so crushing to David as the horrible
thought that though he might succeed now in getting Jacob home again
there would never be any security against his coming back, like a wasp to
the honey-pot.  As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob's return would
be hanging over him.  But could he go on living at Grimworth--an object
of ridicule, discarded by the Palfreys, after having revelled in the
consciousness that he was an envied and prosperous confectioner?  David
liked to be envied; he minded less about being loved.

His doubts on this point were soon settled.  The mind of Grimworth became
obstinately set against him and his viands, and the new school being
finished, the eating-room was closed.  If there had been no other reason,
sympathy with the Palfreys, that respectable family who had lived in the
parish time out of mind, would have determined all well-to-do people to
decline Freely's goods.  Besides, he had absconded with his mother's
guineas: who knew what else he had done, in Jamaica or elsewhere, before
he came to Grimworth, worming himself into families under false
pretences?  Females shuddered.  Dreadful suspicions gathered round him:
his green eyes, his bow-legs had a criminal aspect.  The rector disliked
the sight of a man who had imposed upon him; and all boys who could not
afford to purchase, hooted "David Faux" as they passed his shop.
Certainly no man now would pay anything for the "goodwill" of Mr.
Freely's business, and he would be obliged to quit it without a peculium
so desirable towards defraying the expense of moving.

In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr.
David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely, had gone--nobody at Grimworth knew
whither.  In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked.
Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and
having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her
with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever
eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after.
The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly
house-wives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them.

You will further, I hope, be glad to bear, that some purchases of drapery
made by pretty Penny, in preparation for her marriage with Mr. Freely,
came in quite as well for her wedding with young Towers as if they had
been made expressly for the latter occasion.  For Penny's complexion had
not altered, and blue always became it best.

Here ends the story of Mr. David Faux, confectioner, and his brother
Jacob.  And we see in it, I think, an admirable instance of the
unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself.

(1860)