Old-fashioned people call machine-sawed wooden borders on porches “gingerbread work.” The gingerbread sold by old Goody Raby looked very much like them. She had gingerbread horses, and men, and peacocks, and monkeys, gingerbread churches and gingerbread castles, gingerbread kings and queens and saints and dragons and elephants, although the elephant looked rather queer. They were made of a spicy yellow-brown dough rolled into thin sheets, cut into shapes, baked hard and then gilded here and there. The king’s crown, the peacock’s head and neck, the castle on the elephant’s back, were gilded. Barty bought a horse for himself and a small menagerie of animals for the younger children at home.
A boy not much older than himself was selling perfume in a tiny corner. It struck Barty that here might be something that his mother would like, and he pulled at Aunt Olive’s sleeve and asked her what she thought. She agreed with him, and they spent some pleasant minutes choosing little balls of perfumed wax, which could be carried in a box or bag, or laid away in chests. There was something wholesome and refreshing about the scent, and Barty could not make up his mind what flower it was like. The boy said that several kinds were used in the making of each perfume, and that he had helped in the work. He said that his name was “Vanni,” which Barty thought a very queer one, but this name, it appeared, was the same as John in his country. Barty himself would be called there Bartolomeo.
Vanni seemed to be known to many of the people at the fair. A tall, brown young fellow with a demure dark-eyed girl on his arm stopped and asked him how trade was, and so did a young man in foreign dress who spoke to him in his own language. This young man was presently addressed as “Matteo,” by a gayly clad troubadour, and Barty, with a jump, recognized the young man who had been with the King when he came to look at their dyke. One of the reasons why almost everybody came to Bartlemy Fair was that almost everybody did. It was a place where people who seldom crossed each other’s path were likely to meet.
“Has Vanni caught anything yet?” the troubadour asked in that language which Barty did not know.
“Not yet,” the other answered, “but he will. Set a weasel to catch a rat.” And the two laughed and parted.
But it was Barty who really caught the rat they were talking about. A man with a performing bear had stopped just there and a crowd had gathered about him. Barty had seen that bear the night before, and he could not see over the heads of the men, in any case. A stout elderly merchant trying to make his way through the narrow lanes, fumed and fretted and became wedged in. Barty saw a thin, shabby-faced fellow duck under a big drover’s arm, cut a long slit in the stout man’s purse that hung at his belt, and slip through the crowd. Just then some one raised a cry that the bear was loose, and everything was confusion. Barty’s wit and boldness blocked the thief’s game. He tripped the man up with David’s staff, and with a flying jump, landed on his shoulders. It was a risky thing to do, for the man had a knife and could use it, but Barty was the best wrestler in his village, and a minute later David had nabbed the rascal and recovered the plunder.
“Thank ye, my lad, thank ye,” said the merchant, and hurried away. The boy Vanni swept all his goods into a basket and after one look at the thief was off like a shot. Presently up came two or three men in the livery of the King’s officers.
Meanwhile Farmer Appleby and his sister came up, having seen the affair from a little distance.
“My faith,” said Aunt Olive indignantly, “he might have spared a penny or two for your trouble. That was Gamelyn Bouverel, one of the richest goldsmiths in Chepe.”
“I don’t care,” laughed Barty, “it was good sport.”