A FINE DISTINCTION
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 yer oath on't. Hulloa! What are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr.
Feverel for?--I say, young gentleman, have you spoken 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 say to-day, 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
transpoort 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'
'scused you, sir! You're a boy and'll learn better. I asked no more
than payment and a 'pology; 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.