Brother Jacob......................................................................................................................................................1

George Eliot .............................................................................................................................................1

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 plumbuns 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 envywho breakfasts on macaroons,

dines on meringues, sups on twelfthcake, and fills up the intermediate hours with sugarcandy or

pepperminthow 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 dancinglessons,

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 dropcakes, 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

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

washerwoman, 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

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 babylinen had

reposed for the last twenty yearsever since her son David had taken to his feet, with a slight promise of

bowlegs 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

welldeveloped 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 youngestborn, 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 churchgoers were at a safe distance, to abstract the guineas from their wooden box and slip

them into a small canvas bagnothing 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 barleysugar 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

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

"Here, Jacob," said David, in an insinuating tone, handing the box to him, "I'll give 'em all to you.

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 daymare 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

otherprobably of an unwonted sensationit paused, descended to Jacob's knee, and opened slowly under

the inspection of Jacob's dull eyes. David began to pray again, but immediately desistedanother resource

"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

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 nobodyall for

Jacob hushshsh! Put guineas in the holethey'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

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

Jacob, to whom this once indifferent brother had all at once become a sort of sweettasted 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 shortsightedness 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 goodbye 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 brotheran item of so

uncertain and fluctuating a character, that I doubt whether he would not have puzzled the astute heroes of M.

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 homedepriving 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

breakfasttime. 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 openingseven 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 checkstring 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 horseblock, 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 milkbowl that was "duly set" for him; but of late

he had taken to sleeping in the hayloft, 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 himit 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 horseblock, 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 ofburnt pastrywas that large body with a

staff planted beside it, close at the foot of the ashtree? David paused, not to make up his mind as to the

nature of the apparitionhe had not the happiness of doubting for a moment that the staff was Jacob's

pitchforkbut to gather the selfcommand 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 sweetflavoured 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

"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

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

"Go, Jacob," he said, when they were out of the thicketpointing towards the house as he spoke; "go and

fetch me a spadea spade. But give ME the bundle," he added, trying to reach it from the fork, where it

But Jacob showed as much alacrity in obeying as a wasp shows in leaving a sugarbasin. 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 sugarcandy in one of his brother's tailpockets; 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 sugarcandy 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 coattail. David

looked forward to being well received among strangers, but it might make a difference if he had only one tail

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 attitudeit was with his arms

tightly fastened round his dear brother's body; and if ever David attempted to move, the grasp tightened with

"Th' innicent's fond on you," observed the carrier, thinking that David was probably an amiable brother, and

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?

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 Jacobhe 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 didwhy, 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

It was nearly six years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the West Indies, that the vacant shop in the

marketplace 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

Grimworth, to a discerning eye, was a good place to set up shopkeeping in. There was no competition in it at

present; the Churchpeople 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 persuasionexcept 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 greatlyextended scale, the testator having left no restrictions

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

andneck trading, and solicit feminine eyes by gownpieces laid in fanlike 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 Chinaasters?), 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 sallowcomplexioned 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 palefaced fellow like that would deal in showy and inferior articlesprinted cottons

and muslins which would leave their dye in the washtub, 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 pastrycook'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

It certainly made a blaze of light and colour, almost as if a rainbow had suddenly descended into the

marketplace, 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

sugarplums; and I think even Punch, setting up his tabernacle in the market place, would not have

succeeded in drawing them away from those shopwindows, 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 wideopen 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 homecooked? No, no. Mr.

Edward Freely, as he called himself, was deceived, if he thought Grimworth money was to flow into his

Edward Freely was the name that shone in gilt letters on a mazarine ground over the doorplace of the new

shopa generoussounding name, that might have belonged to the openhearted, improvident hero of an

old comedy, who would have delighted in raining sugared almonds, like a new mannagift, 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 childhe often said so, observing at the same time that he loved honesty, and also that he was very

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; wellprincipled, 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 discontentan observing young man, evidently. Mrs. Chaloner ordered

winebiscuits 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 cardingmill, 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 dropcakes, 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 simplicitya

melancholy task, if it were not cheered by the prospect of the fine peripateia or downfall by which the

It was young Mrs. Steene, the veterinary surgeons wife, who first gave way to temptation. I fear she had been

rather overeducated 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 wateryindeed, was simply a topbooted "vet.", who came in hungry at dinnertime; 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 topboots!

This brutal man had invited a supperparty for Christmas eve, when he would expect to see mincepies on

the table. Mrs. Steene had prepared her mincemeat, 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 suppertable. 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 mincepies from Freely's:

she knew he had some. But what was to become of the eighteen heavy mincepies? Oh, it was of no use

thinking about that; it was very expensiveindeed, 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 readymade. You paid a little more

Such was the sophistry with which this misguided young woman enough. Mrs. Steene sent for the

mincepies, 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 mincepies. The third step was to harden herself by telling the fact of the bought

mincepies 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

keensighted, winked at the too frequent presentation on washingdays, and at impromptu suppers, of

superior spicedbeef, 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 oldfashioned 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

homemade; 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,

The Yellow Coat School was a double source of profit to the calculating confectioner; for he opened an

eatingroom 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 sweettasted 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

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

timbermerchant, who had lately taken to the coaltrade 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

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 married a London mercer.) "He's an amusing fellow; and I've no objection to his

making one at the Oyster Club; but he's a bit too fond of riding the high horse. He's uncommonly knowing,

I'll allow; but how came he to go to the Indies? I should like that answered. It's unnatural in a confectioner.

I'm not fond of people that have been beyond seas, if they can't give a good account how they happened to

go. When folks go so far off, it's because they've got little credit nearer homethat's my opinion. However,

he's got some good rum; but I don't want to be hand and glove with him, for all that."

It was this kind of dim suspicion which beclouded the view of Mr. Freely's qualities in the maturer minds of

Grimworth through the early months of his residence there. But when the confectioner ceased to be a novelty,

the suspicions also ceased to be novel, and people got tired of hinting at them, especially as they seemed to be

refuted by his advancing prosperity and importance. Mr. Freely was becoming a person of influence in the

parish; he was found useful as an overseer of the poor, having great firmness in enduring other people's pain,

which firmness, he said, was due to his great benevolence; he always did what was good for people in the

end. Mr. Chaloner had even selected him as clergyman's churchwarden, for he was a very handy man, and

much more of Mr. Chaloner's opinion in everything about church business than the older parishioners. Mr.

Freely was a very regular churchman, but at the Oyster Club he was sometimes a little free in his

conversation, more than hinting at a life of Sultanic selfindulgence which he had passed in the West Indies,

shaking his head now and then and smiling rather bitterly, as men are wont to do when they intimate that they

have become a little too wise to be instructed about a world which has long been flat and stale to them.

For some time he was quite general in his attentions to the fair sex, combining the gallantries of a lady's man

with a severity of criticism on the person and manners of absent belles, which tended rather to stimulate in

the feminine breast the desire to conquer the approval of so fastidious a judge. Nothing short of the very best

in the department of female charms and virtues could suffice to kindle the ardour of Mr. Edward Freely, who

had become familiar with the most luxuriant and dazzling beauty in the West Indies. It may seem incredible

that a confectioner should have ideas and conversation so much resembling those to be met with in a higher

walk of life, but it must be remembered that he had not merely travelled, he had also bowlegs and a sallow,

smallfeatured visage, so that nature herself had stamped him for a fastidious connoisseur of the fair sex.

At last, however, it seemed clear that Cupid had found a sharper arrow than usual, and that Mr. Freely's heart

was pierced. It was the general talk among the young people at Grimworth. But was it really love, and not

rather ambition? Miss Fullilove, the timber merchant's daughter, was quite sure that if SHE were Miss

Penny Palfrey, she would be cautious; it was not a good sign when men looked so much above themselves for

a wife. For it was no less a person than Miss Penelope Palfrey, second daughter of the Mr. Palfrey who

farmed his own land, that had attracted Mr. Freely's peculiar regard, and conquered his fastidiousness; and no

wonder, for the Ideal, as exhibited in the finest waxwork, was perhaps never so closely approached by the

Real as in the person of the pretty Penelope. Her yellowish flaxen hair did not curl naturally, I admit, but its

bright crisp ringlets were such smooth, perfect miniature tubes, that you would have longed to pass your little

finger through them, and feel their soft elasticity. She wore them in a crop, for in those days, when society

was in a healthier state, young ladies wore crops long after they were twenty, and Penelope was not yet

nineteen. Like the waxen ideal, she had round blue eyes, and round nostrils in her little nose, and teeth such

as the ideal would be seen to have, if it ever showed them. Altogether, she was a small, round thing, as neat

as a pink and white double daisy, and as guileless; for I hope it does not argue guile in a pretty damsel of

nineteen, to think that she should like to have a beau and be "engaged," when her elder sister had already

been in that position a year and a half. To be sure, there was young Towers always coming to the house; but

Penny felt convinced he only came to see her brother, for he never had anything to say to her, and never

It is not unlikely that Mr. Freely had early been smitten by Penny's charms, as brought under his observation

at church, but he had to make his way in society a little before he could come into nearer contact with them;

and even after he was well received in Grimworth families, it was a long while before he could converse with

Penny otherwise than in an incidental meeting at Mr. Luff's. It was not so easy to get invited to Long

Meadows, the residence of the Palfreys; for though Mr. Palfrey had been losing money of late years, not

being able quite to recover his feet after the terrible murrain which forced him to borrow, his family were far

from considering themselves on the same level even as the oldestablished tradespeople with whom they

visited. The greatest people, even kings and queens, must visit with somebody, and the equals of the great are

scarce. They were especially scarce at Grimworth, which, as I have before observed, was a low parish,

mentioned with the most scornful brevity in gazetteers. Even the great people there were far behind those of

their own standing in other parts of this realm. Mr. Palfrey's farmyard doors had the paint all worn off them,

and the front garden walks had long been merged in a general weediness. Still, his father had been called

Squire Palfrey, and had been respected by the last Grimworth generation as a man who could afford to drink

Pretty Penny was not blind to the fact that Mr. Freely admired her, and she felt sure that it was he who had

sent her a beautiful valentine; but her sister seemed to think so lightly of him (all young ladies think lightly of

the gentlemen to whom they are not engaged), that Penny never dared mention him, and trembled and

blushed whenever they met him, thinking of the valentine, which was very strong in its expressions, and

which she felt guilty of knowing by heart. A man who had been to the Indies, and knew the sea so well,

seemed to her a sort of public character, almost like Robinson Crusoe or Captain Cook; and Penny had

always wished her husband to be a remarkable personage, likely to be put in Mangnall's Questions, with

which register of the immortals she had become acquainted during her one year at a boardingschool. Only it

seemed strange that a remarkable man should be a confectioner and pastrycook, and this anomaly quite

disturbed Penny's dreams. Her brothers, she knew, laughed at men who couldn't sit on horseback well, and

called them tailors; but her brothers were very rough, and were quite without that power of anecdote which

made Mr. Freely such a delightful companion. He was a very good man, she thought, for she had heard him

say at Mr. Luff's, one day, that he always wished to do his duty in whatever state of life he might be placed;

and he knew a great deal of poetry, for one day he had repeated a verse of a song. She wondered if he had

Poor Mr. Freely! her father would very likely objectshe felt sure he would, for he always called Mr. Freely

"that sugarplum fellow." Oh, it was very cruel, when true love was crossed in that way, and all because Mr.

Freely was a confectioner: well, Penny would be true to him, for all that, and since his being a confectioner

gave her an opportunity of showing her faithfulness, she was glad of it. Edward Freely was a pretty name,

much better than John Towers. Young Towers had offered her a rose out of his buttonhole the other day,

blushing very much; but she refused it, and thought with delight how much Mr. Freely would be comforted if

Poor little Penny! the days were so very long among the daisies on a grazing farm, and thought is so

activehow was it possible that the inward drama should not get the start of the outward? I have known

young ladies, much better educated, and with an outward world diversified by instructive lectures, to say

nothing of literature and highlydeveloped fancywork, who have spun a cocoon of visionary joys and

sorrows for themselves, just as Penny did. Her elder sister Letitia, who had a prouder style of beauty, and a

more worldly ambition, was engaged to a woolfactor, who came all the way from Cattelton to see her; and

everybody knows that a woolfactor takes a very high rank, sometimes driving a doublebodied gig. Letty's

notions got higher every day, and Penny never dared to speak of her cherished griefs to her lofty

sisternever dared to propose that they should call at Mr. Freely's to buy liquorice, though she had prepared

for such an incident by mentioning a slight sore throat. So she had to pass the shop on the other side of the

marketplace, and reflect, with a suppressed sigh, that behind those pink and white jars somebody was

thinking of her tenderly, unconscious of the small space that divided her from him.

And it was quite true that, when business permitted, Mr. Freely thought a great deal of Penny. He thought her

prettiness comparable to the loveliest things in confectionery; he judged her to be of submissive

temperlikely to wait upon him as well as if she had been a negress, and to be silently terrified when his

liver made him irritable; and he considered the Palfrey family quite the best in the parish, possessing

marriageable daughters. On the whole, he thought her worthy to become Mrs. Edward Freely, and all the

more so, because it would probably require some ingenuity to win her. Mr. Palfrey was capable of

horsewhipping a too rash pretender to his daughter's hand; and, moreover, he had three tall sons: it was clear

that a suitor would be at a disadvantage with such a family, unless travel and natural acumen had given him a

countervailing power of contrivance. And the first idea that occurred to him in the matter was, that Mr.

Palfrey would object less if he knew that the Freelys were a much higher family than his own. It had been

foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and

to shut up the portrait of his great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait should

be hungover the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely, K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous

position, was seen to have had one arm only, and one eyein these points resembling the heroic

Nelsonwhile a certain pallid insignificance of feature confirmed the relationship between himself and his

Next, Mr. Freely was seized with an irrepressible ambition to posses Mrs. Palfrey's receipt for brawn, hers

being pronounced on all hands to be superior to his ownas he informed her in a very flattering letter

carried by his errandboy. Now Mrs. Palfrey, like other geniuses, wrought by instinct rather than by rule, and

possessed no receiptsindeed, despised all people who used them, observing that people who pickled by

book, must pickle by weights and measures, and such nonsense; as for herself, her weights and measures

were the tip of her finger and the tip of her tongue, and if you went nearer, why, of course, for dry goods like

flour and spice, you went by handfuls and pinches, and for wet, there was a middlesized jug quite the best

thing whether for much or little, because you might know how much a teacupful was if you'd got any use of

your senses, and you might be sure it would take five middlesized jugs to make a gallon. Knowledge of this

kind is like Titian's colouring, difficult to communicate; and as Mrs. Palfrey, once remarkably handsome, had

now become rather stout and asthmatical, and scarcely ever left home, her oral teaching could hardly be given

anywhere except at Long Meadows. Even a matron is not insusceptible to flattery, and the prospect of a

visitor whose great object would be to listen to her conversation, was not without its charms to Mrs. Palfrey.

Since there was no receipt to be sent in reply to Mr. Freely's humble request, she called on her more docile

daughter, Penny, to write a note, telling him that her mother would be glad to see him and talk with him on

brawn, any day that he could call at Long Meadows. Penny obeyed with a trembling hand, thinking how

In this way, Mr. Freely got himself introduced into the home of the Palfreys, and notwithstanding a tendency

in the male part of the family to jeer at him a little as "peaky" and bowlegged, he presently established his

position as an accepted and frequent guest. Young Towers looked at him with increasing disgust when they

met at the house on a Sunday, and secretly longed to try his ferret upon him, as a piece of vermin which that

valuable animal would be likely to tackle with unhesitating vigour. Butso blind sometimes are

parentsneither Mr. nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a tradesman of

questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered. Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her,

and THAT was likely enough to be a match some day; but Penny was a child at present. And all the while

Penny was imagining the circumstances under which Mr. Freely would make her an offer: perhaps down by

the row of damsontrees, when they were in the garden before tea; perhaps by letterin which case, how

would the letter begin? "Dearest Penelope?" or "My dear Miss Penelope?" or straight off, without dear

anything, as seemed the most natural when people were embarrassed? But, however he might make the offer,

she would not accept it without her father's consent: she would always be true to Mr. Freely, but she would

not disobey her father. For Penny was a good girl, though some of her female friends were afterwards of

opinion that it spoke ill for her not to have felt an instinctive repugnance to Mr. Freely.

But he was cautious, and wished to be quite sure of the ground he trod on. His views on marriage were not

entirely sentimental, but were as duly mingled with considerations of what would be advantageous to a man

in his position, as if he had had a very large amount of money spent on his education. He was not a man to

fall in love in the wrong place; and so, he applied himself quite as much to conciliate the favour of the

parents, as to secure the attachment of Penny. Mrs. Palfrey had not been inaccessible to flattery, and her

husband, being also of mortal mould, would not, it might be hoped, be proof against rumthat very fine

Jamaica rumof which Mr. Freely expected always to have a supply sent him from Jamaica. It was not easy

to get Mr. Palfrey into the parlour behind the shop, where a mild backstreet light fell on the features of the

heroic admiral; but by getting hold of him rather late one evening as he was about to return home from

Grimworth, the aspiring lover succeeded in persuading him to sup on some collared beef which, after Mrs.

From that hour Mr. Freely felt sure of success: being in privacy with an estimable man old enough to be his

father, and being rather lonely in the world, it was natural he should unbosom himself a little on subjects

which he could not speak of in a mixed circle especially concerning his expectations from his uncle in

Jamaica, who had no children, and loved his nephew Edward better than any one else in the world, though he

had been so hurt at his leaving Jamaica, that he had threatened to cut him off with a shilling. However, he had

since written to state his full forgiveness, and though he was an eccentric old gentleman and could not bear to

give away money during his life, Mr. Edward Freely could show Mr. Palfrey the letter which declared,

plainly enough, who would be the affectionate uncle's heir. Mr. Palfrey actually saw the letter, and could not

help admiring the spirit of the nephew who declared that such brilliant hopes as these made no difference to

his conduct; he should work at his humble business and make his modest fortune at it all the same. If the

Jamaica estate was to come to himwell and good. It was nothing very surprising for one of the Freely

family to have an estate left him, considering the lands that family had possessed in time gone bynay, still

possessed in the Northumberland branch. Would not Mr. Palfrey take another glass of rum? and also look at

the last year's balance of the accounts? Mr. Freely was a man who cared to possess personal virtues, and did

We know how easily the great Leviathan may be led, when once there is a hook in his nose or a bridle in his

jaws. Mr. Palfrey was a large man, but, like Leviathan's, his bulk went against him when once he had taken a

turning. He was not a mercurial man, who easily changed his point of view. Enough. Before two months were

over, he had given his consent to Mr. Freely's marriage with his daughter Penny, and having hit on a formula

by which he could justify it, fenced off all doubts and objections, his own included. The formula was this:

Little Penny was very proud and fluttering, but hardly so happy as she expected to be in an engagement. She

wondered if young Towers cared much about it, for he had not been to the house lately, and her sister and

brothers were rather inclined to sneer than to sympathize. Grimworth rang with the news. All men extolled

Mr. Freely's good fortune; while the women, with the tender solicitude characteristic of the sex, wished the

While affairs were at this triumphant juncture, Mr. Freely one morning observed that a stonecarver who had

been breakfasting in the eatingroom had left a newspaper behind. It was the Xshire Gazette, and Xshire

being a county not unknown to Mr. Freely, he felt some curiosity to glance over it, and especially over the

advertisements. A slight flush came over his face as he read. It was produced by the following

announcement: "If David Faux, son of Jonathan Faux, late of Gilsbrook, will apply at the office of Mr.

"Father's dead!" exclaimed Mr. Freely, involuntarily. "Can he have left me a legacy?"

Perhaps it was a result quite different from your expectations, that Mr. David Faux should have returned from

the West Indies only a few years after his arrival there, and have set up in his old business, like any plain man

who has never travelled. But these cases do occur in life. Since, as we know, men change their skies and see

new constellations without changing their souls, it will follow sometimes that they don't change their business

Certainly, this result was contrary to David's own expectations. He had looked forward, you are aware, to a

brilliant career among "the blacks"; but, either because they had already seen too many white men, or for

some other reason, they did not at once recognize him as a superior order of human being; besides, there were

no princesses among them. Nobody in Jamaica was anxious to maintain David for the mere pleasure of his

society; and those hidden merits of a man which are so well known to himself were as little recognized there

as they notoriously are in the effete society of the Old World. So that in the dark hints that David threw out at

the Oyster Club about that life of Sultanic selfindulgence spent by him in the luxurious Indies, I really think

he was doing himself a wrong; I believe he worked for his bread, and, in fact, took to cooking as, after all, the

only department in which he could offer skilled labour. He had formed several ingenious plans by which he

meant to circumvent people of large fortune and small faculty; but then he never met with exactly the right

circumstances. David's devices for getting rich without work had apparently no direct relation with the world

outside him, as his confectionery receipts had. It is possible to pass a great many bad half pennies and bad

halfcrowns, but I believe there has no instance been known of passing a halfpenny or a halfcrown as a

sovereign. A sharper can drive a brisk trade in this world: it is undeniable that there may be a fine career for

him, if he will dare consequences; but David was too timid to be a sharper, or venture in any way among the

mantraps of the law. He dared rob nobody but his mother. And so he had to fall back on the genuine value

there was in himto be content to pass as a good halfpenny, or, to speak more accurately, as a good

confectioner. For in spite of some additional reading and observation, there was nothing else he could make

so much money by; nay, he found in himself even a capability of extending his skill in this direction, and

embracing all forms of cookery; while, in other branches of human labour, he began to see that it was not

possible for him to shine. Fate was too strong for him; he had thought to master her inclination and had fled

over the seas to that end; but she caught him, tied an apron round him, and snatching him from all other

devices, made him devise cakes and patties in a kitchen at Kingstown. He was getting submissive to her,

since she paid him with tolerable gains; but fevers and prickly heat, and other evils incidental to cooks in

ardent climates, made him long for his native land; so he took ship once more, carrying his six years' savings,

and seeing distinctly, this time, what were Fate's intentions as to his career. If you question me closely as to

whether all the money with which he set up at Grimworth consisted of pure and simple earnings, I am obliged

to confess that he got a sum or two for charitably abstaining from mentioning some other people's

misdemeanours. Altogether, since no prospects were attached to his family name, and since a new christening

seemed a suitable commencement of a new life, Mr. David Faux thought it as well to call himself Mr.

But lo! now, in opposition to all calculable probability, some benefit appeared to be attached to the name of

David Faux. Should he neglect it, as beneath the attention of a prosperous tradesman? It might bring him into

contact with his family again, and he felt no yearnings in that direction: moreover, he had small belief that the

"something to his advantage" could be anything considerable. On the other hand, even a small gain is

pleasant, and the promise of it in this instance was so surprising, that David felt his curiosity awakened. The

scale dipped at last on the side of writing to the lawyer, and, to be brief, the correspondence ended in an

appointment for a meeting between David and his eldest brother at Mr. Strutt's, the vague "something" having

David, you know, had expected to be disinherited; and so he would have been, if he had not, like some other

indifferent sons, come of excellent parents, whose conscience made them scrupulous where much more

highlyinstructed people often feel themselves warranted in following the bent of their indignation. Good

Mrs. Faux could never forget that she had brought this illconditioned son into the world when he was in that

entirely helpless state which excluded the smallest choice on his part; and, somehow or other, she felt that his

going wrong would be his father's and mother's fault, if they failed in one tittle of their parental duty. Her

notion of parental duty was not of a high and subtle kind, but it included giving him his due share of the

family property; for when a man had got a little honest money of his own, was he so likely to steal? To cut

the delinquent son off with a shilling, was like delivering him over to his evil propensities. No; let the sum of

twenty guineas which he had stolen be deducted from his share, and then let the sum of three guineas be put

back from it, seeing that his mother had always considered three of the twenty guineas as his; and, though he

had run away, and was, perhaps, gone across the sea, let the money be left to him all the same, and be kept in

reserve for his possible return. Mr. Faux agreed to his wife's views, and made a codicil to his will

accordingly, in time to die with a clear conscience. But for some time his family thought it likely that David

would never reappear; and the eldest son, who had the charge of Jacob on his hands, often thought it a little

hard that David might perhaps be dead, and yet, for want of certitude on that point, his legacy could not fall

to his legal heir. But in this state of things the opposite certitudenamely, that David was still alive and in

Englandseemed to be brought by the testimony of a neighbour, who, having been on a journey to

Cattelton, was pretty sure he had seen David in a gig, with a stout man driving by his side. He could "swear it

was David," though he could "give no account why, for he had no marks on him; but no more had a white

dog, and that didn't hinder folks from knowing a white dog." It was this incident which had led to the

The legacy was paid, of course, after a few preliminary disclosures as to Mr. David's actual position. He

begged to send his love to his mother, and to say that he hoped to pay her a dutiful visit by and by; but, at

present, his business and near prospect of marriage made it difficult for him to leave home. His brother

"My mother may do as she likes about having you to see her, but, for my part, I don't want to catch sight of

you on the premises again. When folks have taken a new name, they'd better keep to their new 'quinetance."

David pocketed the insult along with the eightytwo pounds three, and travelled home again in some triumph

at the ease of a transaction which had enriched him to this extent. He had no intention of offending his

brother by further claims on his fraternal recognition, and relapsed with full contentment into the character of

Mr. Edward Freely, the orphan, scion of a great but reduced family, with an eccentric uncle in the West

Indies. (I have already hinted that he had some acquaintance with imaginative literature; and being of a

practical turn, he had, you perceive, applied even this form of knowledge to practical purposes.)

It was little more than a week after the return from his fruitful journey, that the day of his marriage with

Penny having been fixed, it was agreed that Mrs. Palfrey should overcome her reluctance to move from

home, and that she and her husband should bring their two daughters to inspect little Penny's future abode

and decide on the new arrangements to be made for the reception of the bride. Mr. Freely meant her to have a

house so pretty and comfortable that she need not envy even a woolfactor's wife. Of course, the upper room

over the shop was to be the best sittingroom; but also the parlour behind the shop was to be made a suitable

bower for the lovely Penny, who would naturally wish to be near her husband, though Mr. Freely declared his

resolution never to allow HIS wife to wait in the shop. The decisions about the parlour furniture were left till

last, because the party was to take tea there; and, about five o'clock, they were all seated there with the best

muffins and buttered buns before them, little Penny blushing and smiling, with her "crop" in the best order,

and a blue frock showing her little white shoulders, while her opinion was being always asked and never

given. She secretly wished to have a particular sort of chimney ornaments, but she could not have brought

herself to mention it. Seated by the side of her yellow and rather withered lover, who, though he had not

reached his thirtieth year, had already crow's feet about his eyes, she was quite tremulous at the greatness of

her lot in being married to a man who had travelled so muchand before her sister Letty! The handsome

Letitia looked rather proud and contemptuous, thought her nature brotherinlaw an odious person, and was

vexed with her father and mother for letting Penny marry him. Dear little Penny! She certainly did look like a

fresh white heart cherry going to be bitten off the stem by that lipless mouth. Would no deliverer come to

"Quite a family likeness between the admiral and you, Mr. Freely," observed Mrs. Palfrey, who was looking

at the family portrait for the first time. "It's wonderful! and only a granduncle. Do you feature the rest of

"I can't say," said Mr. Freely, with a sigh. "My family have mostly thought themselves too high to take any

At this moment an extraordinary disturbance was heard in the shop, as of a heavy animal stamping about and

making angry noises, and then of a glass vessel falling in shivers, while the voice of the apprentice was heard

Mr. Freely rose in anxious astonishment, and hastened into the shop, followed by the four Palfreys, who

made a group at the parlourdoor, transfixed with wonder at seeing a large man in a smockfrock, with a

pitchfork in his hand, rush up to Mr. Freely and hug him, crying out,"Zavy, Zavy, b'other Zavy!"

It was Jacob, and for some moments David lost all presence of mind. He felt arrested for having stolen his

"I'se Zacob, b'other Zacob. Come 'o zee Zavy"till hunger prompted him to relax his grasp, and to seize a

By this time David's power of device had begun to return, but it was a very hard task for his prudence to

"I don't know who he is; he must be drunk," he said, in a low tone to Mr. Palfrey. "But he's dangerous with

that pitchfork. He'll never let it go." Then checking himself on the point of betraying too great an intimacy

with Jacob's habits, he added "You watch him, while I run for the constable." And he hurried out of the shop.

"Why, where do you come from, my man?" said Mr. Palfrey, speaking to Jacob in a conciliatory tone. Jacob

was eating his pie by large mouthfuls, and looking round at the other good things in the shop, while he

embraced his pitchfork with his left arm, and laid his left hand on some Bath buns. He was in the rare

position of a person who recovers a long absent friend and finds him richer than ever in the characteristics

"I's Zacobb'other Zacob't home. I love Zavyb'other Zavy," he said, as soon as Mr. Palfrey had drawn

his attention. "Zavy come back from z' Indiesgot mother's zinnies. Where's Zavy?" he added, looking

round and then turning to the others with a questioning air, puzzled by David's disappearance.

"It's very odd," observed Mr. Palfrey to his wife and daughters. "He seems to say Freely's his brother come

"What a pleasant relation for us!" said Letitia, sarcastically. "I think he's a good deal like Mr. Freely. He's got

But now Mr. Freely reentered the shop without the constable. During his walk of a few yards he had had

time and calmness enough to widen his view of consequences, and he saw that to get Jacob taken to the

workhouse or to the lockup house as an offensive stranger might have awkward effects if his family took the

trouble of inquiring after him. He must resign himself to more patient measures.

"On second thoughts," he said, beckoning to Mr. Palfrey and whispering to him while Jacob's back was

turned, "he's a poor half witted fellow. Perhaps his friends will come after him. I don't mind giving him

something to eat, and letting him lie down for the night. He's got it into his head that he knows methey do

get these fancies, idiots do. He'll perhaps go away again in an hour or two, and make no more ado. I'm a

"Why, he'll eat a sovereign's worth in no time," said Mr. Palfrey, thinking Mr. Freely a little too magnificent

"Eh, Zavy, come back?" exclaimed Jacob, giving his dear brother another hug, which crushed Mr. Freely's

"Aye, aye," said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in his mind, except the courage to

"Mother's zinnies?" said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow lozenges that stood in the window. "Zive 'em

David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob a handful. He received them in his

"They'll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate," thought David, and emptied the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with

"You're very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely," said Letitia; and then spitefully, as David joined the party at

the parlourdoor, "I think you could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother."

"I've always thought it a duty to be good to idiots," said Mr. Freely, striving after the most moral view of the

subject. "We might have been idiots ourselveseverybody might have been born idiots, instead of having

"I don't know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then," observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a

"But let us sit down again and finish our tea," said Mr. Freely. "Let us leave the poor creature to himself."

They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently appreciating the kindness of leaving him to

himself, immediately followed his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.

"Well," said Miss Letitia, rising, "I don't know whether YOU mean to stay, mother; but I shall go home."

"Oh, me too," said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to nod and grin at her.

"Well, I think we HAD better be going, Mr. Palfrey," said the mother, rising more slowly.

Mr. Freely, whose complexion had become decidedly yellower during the last halfhour, did not resist this

"It's my belief the man is his brother," said Letitia, when they were all on their way home.

"Nonsense!" said Mr. Palfrey. "Freely's got no brotherhe's said so many and many a time; he's an orphan;

he's got nothing but unclesleastwise, one. What's it matter what an idiot says? What call had Freely to tell

Mr. Freely, left alone with his affectionate brother Jacob, brooded over the possibility of luring him out of the

town early the next morning, and getting him conveyed to Gilsbrook without further betrayals. But the thing

was difficult. He saw clearly that if he took Jacob himself, his absence, conjoined with the disappearance of

the stranger, would either cause the conviction that he was really a relative, or would oblige him to the

dangerous course of inventing a story to account for his disappearance, and his own absence at the same time.

David groaned. There come occasions when falsehood is felt to be inconvenient. It would, perhaps, have been

a longer headed device, if he had never told any of those clever fibs about his uncles, grand and otherwise;

for the Palfreys were simple people, and shared the popular prejudice against lying. Even if he could get

Jacob away this time, what security was there that he would not come again, having once found the way? O

guineas! O lozenges! what enviable people those were who had never robbed their mothers, and had never

told fibs! David spent a sleepless night, while Jacob was snoring close by. Was this the upshot of travelling to

He rose at break of day, as he had once before done when he was in fear of Jacob, and took all gentle means

to rouse this fatal brother from his deep sleep; he dared not be loud, because his apprentice was in the house,

and would report everything. But Jacob was not to be roused. He fought out with his fist at the unknown

cause of disturbance, turned over, and snored again. He must be left to wake as he would. David, with a cold

perspiration on his brow, confessed to himself that Jacob could not be got away that day.

Mr. Palfrey came over to Grimworth before noon, with a natural curiosity to see how his future soninlaw

got on with the stranger to whom he was so benevolently inclined. He found a crowd round the shop. All

Grimworth by this time had heard how Freely had been fastened on by an idiot, who called him "Brother

Zavy"; and the younger population seemed to find the singular stranger an unwearying source of fascination,

"Why don't you send him to the workhouse?" said Mr. Prettyman. "You'll have a row with him and the

children presently, and he'll eat you up. The workhouse is the proper place for him; let his kin claim him, if

"Those may be YOUR feelings, Mr. Prettyman," said David, his mind quite enfeebled by the torture of his

"What! IS he your brother, then?" said Mr. Prettyman, looking at his neighbour Freely rather sharply.

"All men are our brothers, and idiots particular so," said Mr. Freely, who, like many other travelled men, was

"Come, come, if he's your brother, tell the truth, man," said Mr. Prettyman, with growing suspicion. "Don't be

Mr. Palfrey was present, and also had his eye on Freely. It is difficult for a man to believe in the advantage of

a truth which will disclose him to have been a liar. In this critical moment, David shrank from this immediate

"Mr. Prettyman," he said, "I take your observations as an insult. I've no reason to be otherwise than proud of

my own flesh and blood. If this poor man was my brother more than all men are, I should say so."

A tall figure darkened the door, and David, lifting his eyes in that direction, saw his eldest brother, Jonathan,

"I'll stay wi' Zavy," shouted Jacob, as he, too, caught sight of his eldest brother; and, running behind the

"What, he IS here?" said Jonathan Faux, coming forward. "My mother would have no nay, as he'd been away

so long, but I must see after him. And it struck me he was very like come after you, because we'd been

"Aye, it's my innicent of a brother, sure enough," said honest Jonathan. "A fine trouble and cost he is to us, in

"Nay, nay, my name's Faux, I know nothing o' Freelys," said Jonathan, curtly. "Come," he added, turning to

David, "I must take some news to mother about Jacob. Shall I take him with me, or will you undertake to

"Is this gentleman here in the confectionery line your brother, then, sir?" said Mr. Prettyman, feeling that it

"I don't want to own him," said Jonathan, unable to resist a movement of indignation that had never been

allowed to satisfy itself. "He ran away from home with good reasons in his pocket years ago: he didn't want

Mr. Palfrey left the shop; he felt his own pride too severely wounded by the sense that he had let himself be

fooled, to feel curiosity for further details. The most pressing business was to go home and tell his daughter

that Freely was a poor sneak, probably a rascal, and that her engagement was broken off.

Mr. Prettyman stayed, with some internal selfgratulation that HE had never given in to Freely, and that Mr.

Chaloner would see now what sort of fellow it was that he had put over the heads of older parishioners. He

considered it due from him (Mr. Prettyman) that, for the interests of the 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

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, appledumpling, 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

"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 tomorrow I can, perhaps, get him to go to Gilsbrook with me. He'll follow me fast enough, I daresay,"

"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 doorsill 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 marketplace 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

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 honeypot. As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob's return would be hanging over him. But could he

go on living at Grimworthan 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

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 eatingroom 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 welltodo 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 bowlegs 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

In a few months the shop in the marketplace was again to let, and Mr. David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely,

had gonenobody at Grimworth knew whither. In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was

checked. Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mincepies, 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 housewives, and daughters were again anxious to be

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

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.