"Oh, my dear!" and the good lady lifted up her hands, "have you seen the books in his library? Of all criminal literature!—I'd burn the whole lot if I could. The man has a perfect mania for reading about murders and robberies, and all that sort of thing. He goes up to London, and associates with the blackest criminals, haunts the slums; in fact, takes a fiendish delight in contemplating the worst side of human nature. A curate of ours, who went to work in the East End, saw him one day in the company of a Chinaman—fancy, a Chinaman! From that you may judge the sort of company he keeps in London. He's not only queer, in my opinion, but mad—right down mad!"
But all this did not let in much new light on the vagaries of the gentleman in question so far as Miriam could see. If he haunted the slums, as Mrs. Parsley said, she could easily understand how he came to be on Waterloo Bridge at midnight. What she could not explain, save by the theory of lunacy, was this criminal craze and love of associating with the lowest of human kind. And although she discussed this point thoroughly with Mrs. Parsley, that lady could supply no reason save the aforesaid one of "queerness," than which she did not think a stronger was necessary. So for the time being the subject dropped, and Mrs. Parsley, having finished her tea, and enjoyed it, was minded to "put on her things" preparatory to an evening jaunt.
"I will walk home a bit of the way with you, my dear," she said graciously. "I have to see old Pegwin, who is passing away rapidly. I must arrange with him about his funeral."
With this cheerful object Mrs. Parsley left the Vicarage with Miriam. There was a drizzling rain and a high wind, and walking was anything but pleasant. On the outskirts of the village—the church and Vicarage stood some way beyond it—Mrs. Parsley left Miriam to make the rest of her way home alone, and started down a side lane for the Pegwin cottage—so called—although it was little better than a pig-stye. As she battled against the wind, the lean figure of a ragged boy suddenly started out of the hedge, and ran past her in the direction Miriam had taken.
Mrs. Parsley, who knew every face in the village, saw that the boy was a stranger, and filled with curiosity immediately gave chase. In a very few moments she had the urchin by the scruff of the neck.
The boy wriggled and twisted, and kicked Mrs. Parsley's shins, but that indomitable lady held on, and whacked vigorously with her umbrella.
"You monkey," she raged, "who are you, and what are you doing here?"
He was a stunted, pale-faced brat, with a particularly repulsive countenance, rendered none the more inviting by his screwing it up with a leer.
"'Ere you, lemme alone, will yer?" he yelped, still wriggling. "I ain't a-doin' nothin' to yer, blarst yer!"
"Don't you swear at me, boy, or I'll have you locked up. Where do you come from?"