As they went along, Wilson, feigning fatigue, proposed that they should sit down to rest, but his real motive was that, undisturbed by his companions, he might observe this singular youth more at his leisure and be the better able to form some more definite opinion in his own mind respecting him.
After long contemplating the features and motions of Jim at his leisure, Mr. Wilson came to the conclusion that there was no lack of sense, but that discouragement, low living, absence of all hope for the future, ignorance and being made a butt of, were the potent causes that had reduced the lad to what he was; and that, under the influence of good food and encouragement, he would rally and make an efficient laborer and perhaps something more, and resolved to sift the matter to the bottom.
From the records of the workhouse he ascertained that the boy’s name was James Renfew, that he was not born in the institution, but was brought there with his mother, being at that time three years of age. The mother was then in the last stages of disease, and in a few weeks died. He was informed that the boy had been several times put out to different farmers, who, after keeping him till after harvest, brought him back in the fall to escape the cost of his maintenance in the winter.
Wilson mentioned what he had been told in respect to his character, to which the governor replied it was all true, and that he should not be afraid to trust him with untold gold, that he came and went as he pleased; and when starved out, and not till then, he came to them and was housed, fed and made welcome.
“Where did he get ideas in his head so different from those of workhouse children in general?”
“I am sure I don’t know except they grew there. You seem to have a great deal of curiosity about the history of Jim, there’s an old Scotchwoman here, Grannie Brockton, who took care of his mother while she lived and of the boy after her death; she’s a crabbed venomous old creature, deaf as a haddock, but if she happens to be in a good mood and you can make her hear, she can tell you the whole story.”
“I’ll find a way to make her agreeable.”
He found Grannie Brockton, who seeing a stranger approach, drew herself up, put one hand to her ear, and with the other motioned the intruder away.
Wilson, without a word, approached and laid a piece of silver on her knee. This wrought an instantaneous change, turning briskly round she pulled down the flap of her right ear (the best one) and said,—
“What’s your will wi’ me?”