Jan of the Windmill: A Story of the Plains

by Juliana Horatia Ewing

He was tired of the woman now she was troublesome, and fidgetingly persevering, as women are apt to be, and he was vexed to feel how little money was left in his right-hand pocket. He did not think of feeling in the left one, not merely because the Cheap Jack was standing in front of him, but because no fear for the safety of its contents had dawned upon him. It was easy for a woman to lose her purse out of a pocket flapping loosely in the drapery of her skirts, but that any thing stowed tightly away in a man’s waistcoat under his smock could be stolen in broad daylight without his knowledge did not occur to him. As little did he guess that of all the pickpockets who were supposed to drive a brisk trade at the fair, the quickest, the cleverest, the most practised professional was the Cheap Jack’s wife.

She had feigned to see “something” on the ground near an oyster stall, which she said “might be” her purse. As indeed it might as well as any thing else, seeing that the said purse had no existence.

As she left them, George turned to the Cheap Jack. “Look ’ee here, Jack,” said he; “take thee missus whoam. She do seem to be so put about, ’tis no manner of use her stopping in the mop. And I be off for a pint of something to wash my throat out. I be mortal dry with running up and down after she. Women does make such a caddle about things.”

“You might stand a pint for an old friend, George, my dear,” said the Cheap Jack, following him. But George hurried on, and shook his head. “No, no,” said he; “tak’ thee missus whoam, I tell ’ee. She’ve not seen much at your expense to-day, if she have lost her pus.”

With which the miller’s man escaped into the King’s Arms, and pushed his way to the farthest end of the room, where a large party of men were drinking and smoking.

At a table near him sat the recruiting sergeant whom he had noticed before, and he now examined him more closely.

He was of a not uncommon type of non-commissioned officers in the English service. Not of a very intellectual—hardly perhaps of an interesting—kind of good looks, he was yet a strikingly handsome man. His features were good and clearly cut; his hair and moustache were dark, thick, short and glossy; his dark eyes were quick and bright; his figure was well-made, and better developed; his shapely hands were not only clean, they were fastidiously trimmed about the nails (a daintiness common below the rank of sergeant, especially among men acting as clerks); and if the stone in his signet ring was not a real onyx, it looked quite as well at a distance, and the absence of a crest was not conspicuous. He spoke with a very good imitation of the accent of the officers he had served with, and in his alertness, his well-trained movements, his upright carriage, and his personal cleanliness, he came so near to looking like a gentleman that he escaped it only by a certain swagger, which proved an ill-chosen substitute for well-bred ease.

To George’s eyes this was not visible as a fault. The sergeant was as much “the swell” as George could imagine any man to be.

George Sannel could never remember with distinctness the ensuing events of that afternoon. Dim memories remained with him of the sergeant meeting his long stare with some civilities, to which he was conscious of having replied less suitably than he might have wished. At one period, certainly, bets were made upon the height of himself and the handsome soldier, respectively, and he was sure that they were put back to back, and that he proved the taller man; and that it was somehow impressed upon him that he did not look so, because the other carried himself so much better. It was also impressed upon him, somehow, that if he would consent to be well-dressed, well-fed, and well-lodged, at the expense of the country, his own appearance would quickly rival that of the sergeant, and that the reigning Sovereign would gladly pay, as well as keep and clothe, such an ornamental bulwark of the state. At some other period the sergeant had undoubtedly told him to “give it a name,” and the name he gave it was sixpenny ale, which he drank at the sergeant’s expense, and which was followed by shandy-gaff, on the same footing.

At what time and for what reason George put his hand into his left-hand waistcoat pocket he never could remember. But when he did so, and found it empty, the cry he raised had such a ring of anguish as might have awakened pity for him, even where his ill deeds were fully known.