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.