"What do you think o' that, Moll, my lady? That'll empty folk's pockets, or Joe Harris is mistaken for once in his life. My, this is a stroke o' luck!" and Mr. Harris rubbed his dirty hands together and laughed gleefully. "We've been on the lookout for a couple o' youngsters this many a day; now we've hit upon them at last. A bear an' a dwarf's all very well, but there's nothin' that touches the hearts an' reaches the coins o' an audience like a kid, especially if it has got great innercent eyes an' golden hair!"
"Oh, it's mighty fine for you, no doubt," said Moll angrily. "You'll eat an' drink your fill, an' dress up in fine clo'es o' an off evenin' to go rollickin' about an' enjoy yourself. But what good'll it do me, I'd like to know?" she asked shrilly. "I share yer dirty work, I know, but precious little else; just grub, grub away all the year roun', with never a bit o' pleasure, nor a stitch o' handsome things to my back!"
"I'll give you a silk gownd, Moll, I declare I will, if this bold venture turns out for us what I expect—whatever colour you please; only say the word," said Mr. Harris grandly.
"I'd like claret—a nice bright claret with plenty o' lace, an' that shiny trimmin' wi' tinsel through it," admitted Moll, beginning to recover her good humour, and flashing a smiling glance into the squinty eye fixed somewhere about her forehead. "Ay, an' what else?" she demanded, determined to take full advantage of her husband's unusually bland mood.
"I'll buy you a gold ring too, my girl—one o' them real shiners," promised Joe, thinking that as he was in for the penny he might as well pledge himself to the pound. "Ah! that makes you sit up, I'm thinkin'," and the generous man gave his wife a playful poke in the ribs.
"Reely an' truly, Joe, fair an' square? A true di'mon', an' none o' your sham bits o' glass?" cried Moll in ecstasy.
"Fair an' square, my woman; a real di'mon' as big's a pea, Moll. There's my hand on't, if you just help me through wi' this little business. You can, you know, if you like."
"So help me bob!" said Moll quite solemnly, and the well-matched pair shook hands over their guilty compact. And thus Moll, who in her better moods might have befriended the children, pledged herself, for sake of vanity and greed, to work her hardest for their undoing.
Twilight was drawing in when the canal-boat stopped at Engleton, the last stage on the journey before reaching Barchester. It was a tiny village, nestling at the foot of a range of undulating hills that rose, plateau after plateau, until their summits seemed to meet the sky. The wharf was crowded as usual at that slack evening hour. And in the babel of voices, banging of boxes, shifting of stuff, and general confusion, our little travellers, rested and refreshed by their long sleep and the remainder of the provisions which they had consumed in the cabin, had no difficulty in stealing off the boat and away from the wharf without attracting any notice, except from two persons, a man and woman—Joe Harris and his wife Moll, who did not lose sight of them for a moment, but followed hard upon their heels.
"Look, Joan!" cried Darby, as they turned their faces towards the hills. "See, we're near the Happy Land now!" and the lad pointed to the golden radiance that glowed in the sky and bathed the peaks behind which the sun had only lately sunk from sight. "That's the light from the city. They've opened the gates because they know we're coming.