“Oh!—there’s a strange-looking fellow following us; but perhaps he is your servant?”
“Not so, but my travelling companion—indeed my guide. In fact, I come to Ouzelford in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old friend of mine, of whom I have long been in search.”
“Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they know everybody at Ouzelford. But now I meet you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very much like to ask your advice on a matter which has been much on my mind the last twenty-four hours, and which concerns a person I contrived to discover at Ouzelford, though I certainly was not in search of him—a person about whom you and I had a conversation a few years ago, when you were staying with your worthy father.”
“Eh?” said George, quickly; “whom do you speak of?” “That singular vagabond who took me in, you remember—called himself Chapman—real name William Losely, a returned convict. You would have it that he was innocent, though the man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial.”
“His whole character belied his lips then. Oh, Mr. Hartopp, that man commit the crime imputed to him!—a planned, deliberate robbery—an ungrateful, infamous breach of trust! That man—that! he who rejects the money he does not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious imploring friends—he who has now gone voluntarily forth, aged and lonely, to wring his bread from the humblest calling rather than incur the risk of injuring the child with whose existence he had charged himself!—the dark midnight thief! Believe him not, though his voice may say it. To screen, perhaps, some other man, he is telling you a noble lie. But what of him? Have you really seen him, and at Ouzelford?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. I was in the City Reading-Room, looking out of the window. I saw a great white dog in the street below; I knew the dog at once, sir, though he is disguised by restoration to his natural coat, and his hair is as long as a Peruvian lama’s. ‘‘Tis Sir Isaac,’ said I to myself; and behind Sir Isaac I saw Chapman, so to call him, carrying a basket with pedlar’s wares, and, to my surprise, Old Jessop, who is a formal man, with a great deal of reserve and dignity, pompous indeed (but don’t let that go further), talking to Chapman quite affably, and actually buying something out of the basket. Presently Chapman went away, and was soon lost to sight. Jessop comes into the Reading-Room. ‘I saw you,’ said I, ‘talking to an old fellow with a French dog.’ ‘Such a good old fellow,’ said Jessop; ‘has a way about him that gets into your very heart while he is talking. I should like to make you acquainted with him.’ ‘Thank you for nothing,’ said I; ‘I should be-taken in.’ ‘Never fear,’ says Jessop, ‘he would not take in a fly—the simplest creature.’ I own I chuckled at that, Mr. George. ‘And does he live here,’ said I, ‘or is he merely a wandering pedlar?’ Then Jessop told me that he had seen him for the first time two or three weeks ago, and accosted him rudely, looking on him as a mere tramp; but Chapman answered so well, and showed so many pretty things in his basket, that Jessop soon found himself buying a pair of habit-cuffs for Anna Maria, and in the course of talk it came out, I suppose by a sign, that Chapman was a Freemason, and Jessop is an enthusiast in that sort of nonsense, master of a lodge or something, and that was a new attraction. In short, Jessop took a great fancy to him—patronised him, promised him protection, and actually recommended him to a lodging in the cottage of all old widow who lives in the outskirts of the town, and had once been a nurse in the Jessop family. And what do you think Jessop had just bought of this simple creature’! A pair of worsted mittens as a present for me, and what is more, I have got them on this moment-look! neat, I think, and monstrous warm. Now, I have hitherto kept my own counsel. I have not said to Jessop, ‘Beware—that is the man who took me in.’ But this concealment is a little on my conscience. On the one hand, it seems very cruel, even if the man did once commit a crime, in spite of your charitable convictions to the contrary, that I should be blabbing out his disgrace, and destroying perhaps his livelihood. On the other hand, if he should still be really a rogue, a robber, perhaps dangerous, ought I—ought I—in short—you are a clergyman and a fine scholar, sir-what ought I to do?”
“My dear Mr. Hartopp, do not vex yourself with this very honourable dilemma of conscience. Let me only find my poor old friend, my benefactor I may call him, and I hope to persuade him, if not to return to the home that waits him, at least to be my guest, or put himself under my care. Do you know the name of the widow with whom he lodges?”
“Yes—Halse; and I know the town well enough to conduct you, if not to the house itself, still to its immediate neighbourhood. Pray allow me to accompany you; I should like it very much—for, though you may not think it, from the light way I have been talking of Chapman, I never was so interested in any man, never so charmed by any man; and it has often haunted me at night, thinking that I behaved too harshly to him, and that he was about on the wide world, an outcast, deprived of his little girl, whom he had trusted to me. And I should have run after him yesterday, or called on him this morning, and said, ‘Let me serve you,’ if it had not been for the severity with which he and his son were spoken of, and I myself rebuked for mentioning their very names, by a man whose opinion I, and indeed all the country, must hold in the highest respect—a man of the finest honour, the weightiest character—I mean Guy Darrell, the great Darrell.”