This done, he trudged away, walking stoutly on over the three or four miles of common ground which lay between that hovel and the hut which had been lately inhabited by poor Rebecca Hayley. As he approached it, he was surprised to see the door and windows once more open; and he asked himself, not without some sort of apprehension, whether his assailants of the preceding night might not have migrated thither. He was relieved the moment after by seeing the apparition of the boy Jim at the door of the hut, and walking on confidently he said--
"Why, Jim, my man, I thought you were gone. I was here last night, and found a gentleman looking for you."
"Ay, I ought to have been in London," said the boy; "but I found a whole heap of things belonging to poor Bessy, whom they took away from me; and I didn't know what to do with them, so I packed them all up, and took them over to Mr. White, the parson, who was always so kind to us both; but he was away, so I was obliged to bring them back again. I am sure I don't know what to do with them."
"In London!" exclaimed the pedlar, seizing upon the only part of the boy's speech which surprised him: "what are you going to do in London, my lad? You'll never get on there."
"Oh, yes, I shall," replied the boy. "I've got a place there, and am going to be made a footman of."
"What! with the young gentleman I saw here last night, I suppose?" said the pedlar.
"No, not with the young one--with the old one," replied Jim; and then, following the train of his own ideas, he went on: "she had hid them away so cunningly under her bed that nobody saw them when they were taking her away."
"Saw what?" demanded the pedlar.
"Why, all manner of things," answered the boy: "bits of silk and shawls, and old gloves, and a quantity of paper and music, and a brass scent-box."
"Let me look at the scent-box," said the pedlar, "if you've got it here."