In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a
tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with
diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces,
from opposing ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam,
on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and
looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that
Giles was faithful—if uncorrupted. The farm which supplied to him
ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing
exercise: the farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the
fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was
plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well knew, and he
reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on—a
sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each
of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more,
but on the whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as
everything worth its money must be to a wise man. When the stealing of
grain had been made known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher
with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him the shadow of the guilt. Farmer
Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to
which he would discard; and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom
secreting pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and
off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his
appearance at Sessions.
The Bantam’s small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the right
moment, it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue at
Belthorpe on the night of the conflagration, and he may, therefore,
have seen poor Tom retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred
he did. Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne hinted
broadly at a young woman in the case, and, moreover, told a tale of how
these fellow-threshers had, in noble rivalry, one day turned upon each
other to see which of the two threshed the best; whereof the Bantam
still bore marks, and malice, it was said. However, there he stood, and
tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had concealed
herself in him she must have been hard set to find her unlikeliest
hiding-place.
“Now,” said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the
confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, “tell this young
gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!”
The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round,
fully obscuring him from Richard.
Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric
commenced his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly
nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely listened to his
barbarous locution: but when the recital arrived at the point where the
Bantam affirmed he had seen “T’m Baak’ll wi’s owen hoies,” Richard
faced him, and was amazed to find himself being mutely addressed by a
series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, and winks.
“What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?” cried the boy
indignantly.
Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld
the stolidest mask ever given to man.
“Bain’t makin’ no faces at nobody,” growled the sulky elephant.
The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.
“A see T’m Baak’ll,” the Bantam recommenced, and again the contortions
of a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy might well believe
this churl was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim—
“You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!”
The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.
“I tell you,” said Richard, “I put the lucifers there myself!”
The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the young
gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had
been given him, and that in the right place and at the right time he
should prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he not understood?
“A thowt I see ’un, then,” muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course.
This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, “Thought! Ye thought!
What d’ye mean? Speak out, and don’t be thinkin’. Thought? What the
devil’s that?”
“How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?” Richard put in.
“Thought!” the farmer bellowed louder. “Thought—Devil take ye, when ye
took ye oath on’t. Hulloa! What are ye screwin’ yer eye at Mr. Feverel
for?—I say, young gentleman, have you spoke to this chap before now?”
“I?” replied Richard. “I have not seen him before.”
Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared
his doubts.
“Come,” said he to the Bantam, “speak out, and ha’ done wi’t. Say what
ye saw, and none o’ yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom
Bakewell fire that there rick!” The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in
the window. “What business ha’ you to be a-thinkin’? You’re a witness?
Thinkin’ an’t ev’dence. What’ll ye say to morrow before magistrate!
Mind! what you says today, you’ll stick by to-morrow.”
Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young
gentleman meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe
that the young gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had been
paid to help that, why, he would. And considering that this day’s
evidence rather bound him down to the morrow’s, he determined, after
much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair, to be
not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible that he became
thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had been; for the
night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your hand before
your face; and though, as he expressed it, you might be mortal sure of
a man, you could not identify him upon oath, and the party he had taken
for Tom Bakewell, and could have sworn to, might have been the young
gentleman present, especially as he was ready to swear it upon oath.
So ended the Bantam.
No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his chair,
and made a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the point of
his toe. He failed, and sank back groaning with the pain of the
exertion and disappointment.
“They’re liars, every one!” he cried. “Liars, perj’rers, bribers, and
c’rrupters!—Stop!” to the Bantam, who was slinking away. “You’ve done
for yerself already! You swore to it!”
“A din’t!” said the Bantam, doggedly.
“You swore to’t!” the farmer vociferated afresh.
The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still
affirmed that he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer
absolutely raged in his chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a third
time that the Bantam had sworn to it.
“Noa!” said the Bantam, ducking his poll. “Noa!” he repeated in a lower
note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his
profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw:
“Not up’n o-ath!” he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an
angular jerk of the elbow.
Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he
thought of England’s peasantry after the sample they had there. Richard
would have preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his
sense of the ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no
laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door, “Lucky for’m,” he
exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had vanished, for his fingers itched to
break that stubborn head. He grew very puffy, and addressed Richard
solemnly:
“Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You’ve been a-tampering with my
witness. It’s no use denyin’! I say y’ ’ave, sir! You, or some of ye. I
don’t care about no Feverel! My witness there has been bribed. The
Bantam’s been bribed,” and he shivered his pipe with an energetic thump
on the table—“bribed! I knows it! I could swear to’t!”—
“Upon oath?” Richard inquired, with a grave face.
“Ay, upon oath!” said the farmer, not observing the impertinence.
“I’d take my Bible oath on’t! He’s been corrupted, my principal
witness! Oh! it’s dam cunnin’, but it won’t do the trick. I’ll
transport Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He shall travel, that man shall.
Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel—sorry you haven’t seen how to treat me
proper—you, or yours. Money won’t do everything—no! it won’t. It’ll
c’rrupt a witness, but it won’t clear a felon. I’d ha’ ’soused you,
sir! You’re a boy and’ll learn better. I asked no more than payment and
apology; and that I’d ha’ taken content—always provided my witnesses
weren’t tampered with. Now you must stand yer luck, all o’ ye.”
Richard stood up and replied, “Very well, Mr. Blaize.”
“And if,” continued the farmer, “Tom Bakewell don’t drag you into’t
after ’m, why, you’re safe, as I hope ye’ll be, sincere!”
“It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this
interview with you,” said Richard, head erect.
“Grant ye that,” the farmer responded. “Grant ye that! Yer bold enough,
young gentleman—comes of the blood that should be! If y’ had only ha’
spoke trewth!—I believe yer father—believe every word he said. I do
wish I could ha’ said as much for Sir Austin’s son and heir.”
“What!” cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned, “you
have seen my father?”
But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect
them where they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly,
“Ay, we knows all about that!”
The boy’s perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have
told his father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a touch
of an old inclination to revolt.
“My father knows of this?” said he, very loudly, and staring, as he
spoke, right through the farmer. “Who has played me false? Who would
betray me to him? It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it
was Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to these
indignities. Why couldn’t he be open with me? I shall never trust him
again!”
“And why not you with me, young gentleman?” said the farmer. “I sh’d
trust you if ye had.”
Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good
afternoon.
Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. “Company the young gentleman out, Lucy,”
he waved to the little damsel in the doorway. “Do the honours. And, Mr.
Richard, ye might ha’ made a friend o’ me, sir, and it’s not too late
so to do. I’m not cruel, but I hate lies. I whipped my boy Tom, bigger
than you, for not bein’ above board, only yesterday,—ay! made ’un stand
within swing o’ this chair, and take’s measure. Now, if ye’ll come down
to me, and speak trewth before the trial—if it’s only five minutes
before’t; or if Sir Austin, who’s a gentleman, ’ll say there’s been no
tamperin’ with any o’ my witnesses, his word for’t—well and good! I’ll
do my best to help off Tom Bakewell. And I’m glad, young gentleman,
you’ve got a conscience about a poor man, though he’s a villain. Good
afternoon, sir.”
Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden, never
so much as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who hung at
the garden gate to watch him up the lane, wondering a world of fancies
about the handsome proud boy.