"Oh! thieving, and sheep-stealing, and poaching, and all manner of things," replied the pedlar. "The people in London are at the bottom of it all; for these men would not dare to go on as they do if they could not easily and quickly dispose of what they steal. They were caught once by a cunning contrivance, and that stopped them for a long time."
"How was that effected?" asked Henry.
"Why, you see, sir," replied the man, "the way they carried on their trade was this: they went into a field, killed half-a-dozen sheep or so, skinned them upon the spot, and left the head, skin, and feet in the field. Then upon the commons, you know, there's a great number of donkeys. Well, they used to gather them all together, or as many as they wanted, put the mutton on their backs, and drive them away ten or twelve miles to market. They found plenty of butchers ready to buy the carcases, without asking where they came from--just as men buy game now-a-days. However, a man who had a donkey on the common found that every now and then he lost him for a whole day, and sometimes when he came home his back was bloody; and that roused suspicion as to how the stolen sheep were disposed of. For a long time they could not trap them; but at last a shrewd old fellow fell upon a plan, and getting the asses all together one night, they stuffed their hoofs with a compound of red ochre and something else to make it stiff, and then turned them loose, well knowing they would not go very far before morning. The next day, ten or twelve of the donkeys were missing, and a whole heap of people set out upon the track--for there were plenty of marks of red ochre near the field, where some sheep had been stolen the night before. They had no great difficulty now; for all along the road the thieves had taken, one stone had a mark, and another stone had a mark, for nine or ten miles or more, till they came to the place where the carcases had been carried; and there they found thieves, and sheep, and asses, and all. That stopped the business for some time; but now they have got another plan, which is safer. A man comes down from London in a light cart, and there are five or six different places, at each of which he stops, gets out, and goes into the next field. There he finds whatever has been stolen during the night; and whatever it may be, whether it be a dead sheep, fowls, or game, linen, clothes, or anything else, there is sure to be a ticket upon it with the price marked. If he likes the price, he takes the goods, and he almost always does, for they never put half the value upon them; and then he sends down the money every week to what they call their bankers, in some of the towns near; and they take the fellow-ticket to that which they left upon the goods, and get the money, giving the banker his share."
"Is it possible that such a system is tolerated in England?" exclaimed Henry. "Why, it could not be carried on even in Spain, where heaven knows, justice is lax enough."
"It's true notwithstanding," said the pedlar: "they would have been caught long ago by the old Bow Street runners, for they would have pounced upon the people in London; but you see, sir, we go on improving, this country of ours. We are always improving: that is to say, mending one thing and spoiling another. The streets of London are, I dare say, a great deal quieter and safer, though we hear of bad things enough still, considering how much is paid for keeping them quiet; but then, if a great crime is committed, or a gang of scoundrels formed for robbing and plundering honest men, months go by before these men in the blue coats find out anything about it."
As Henry Hayley knew very little of the affairs of the London police, he did not enter into the question of its efficiency with his worthy companion; and still conversing, though upon other subjects, they walked on more quickly after they had reached the summit of the rise, passed the lodge-gates of Mr. Payne, and soon after entered upon another heath, more wild and desolate-looking than the first. The sun had by this time set, but they had yet full half-an-hour of the long twilight of northern lands before them; and the rich purple tints of the whole landscape were a compensation, in the eyes of one at least of the two, for the brighter beams of the day. Passing onward across the heath, the grey shades of night gaining perceptibly upon the lingering light, they came suddenly upon the edge of a small sandpit, from which was rising up a glare that tinged with red the thick bushes of gorse near the edge. Both Henry and the pedlar stopped and looked over, when, certainly greatly to the surprise of the former, a group was seen seated round a good warm fire, engaged in an occupation perhaps the least to be expected in the world at such a spot and in such circumstances.
The party was composed of three: a man of fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, another of four or five-and-thirty, and a good-looking but rather robust young woman of six or seven-and-twenty. Some kettles and pots, a pair of bellows, and various other articles of the tinker's trade, with a bundle, apparently of clothes, sufficiently denoted the calling of the party; but that which was worthy of admiration and surprise was, as I have said, the occupation in which they were engaged. The young woman was seated by the side of the younger man, her head resting on his shoulder, and her arm thrown carelessly across his knee; but her eyes as well as his were fixed upon their elder companion, who, sitting with his back against the bank and his knees drawn up so as to form a sort of desk, was reading to them out of a large quarto volume, very neatly covered with green baize.
The clear, strong voice rose up distinctly, and Henry heard a part of the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew. He would willingly have listened long, for there was something which seemed to him so fine and touching in the sounds of those holy words read by such a man, in such a situation, that the exquisite beauty and sublimity of the truths there written seemed to acquire, if possible, a deeper force than when read in the crowded church, or even in the solemn cathedral.
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," read the poor man below; and Henry thought, "Surely it is so, even here;" but his companion, who did not understand the feelings which had been excited by the sounds, interrupted the reading with little reverence, saying aloud, "Ah, Master Barnes! is that you? How is it that you are not at Slade's to-night, and so near?"
"The barn is quite full," said the old man, as they all looked up, "and so we came here. We shall do very well; and Master Slade was very sorry he couldn't take us in, and gave us some milk to make up, so that's something."