Many such flints poor Crad came across, and sought in vain for the beauty of them. He never tried to split them with a hammer, as too many do of our Boanergæ; but he was too young to see or feel the chord of the golden siphuncle. One, especially, one great fellow, was harder and rougher than any flint, like the matrix of the concentric jasper.
“Confound that fellow,” said Cradock to himself; “I never shall get at the heart of him. If my pluck were up a little more. Iʼd fight him; though I know he would lick me. Heʼd be sorry for me afterwards.”
Issachar Jupp could lick any two men in the court. He was a bargee, of good intentions—at least, when he took to the cuddy; but his horses had pulled crosswise ever since; and the devil knew, better than the angels, what his nature now was.
“None of your d—d Scripture–reading for me!” he cried, when Cradock came near him; though the young man had never attempted anything of the sort.
He knew that the Word of God is not bread to a blackguardʼs empty belly. And another thing he knew—that he was not of the age and aspect for John Bunyanʼs business. Moreover, Jupp was wonderfully jealous of his wife, a gentle but grimy woman, forty–five years old, whom he larruped every day; although he might be an infidel, he would ensure his wifeʼs fidelity. Nevertheless, he had his pure vein, and Cradock at last got at it.
Mrs. and Miss Ducksacre were very good–hearted women, but, like many other women of that fibre, whose education has been neglected, of a hot and hasty order. Not that we need suppose the pepper to be neutralized by the refinement, only to be absorbed more equably, and transfused more generally.
A little thing came feeling the way into the narrow, dingy shop, one dark November evening, groping along by the sacks of potatoes (all of them “seconds,” for the firm did not deal much in “Ware Regents”), feeling its way along the sacks which towered above its head, like bulky snow–giants embrowned with thaw; and then by the legs of the “tatie–bin,” with the great scales hanging above it, and then by the heap of lighting–wood, piled in halfpenny bundles, with the ends against the wall; and so the little thing emerged between two mighty hills of coleworts, and under the frugal gas–burner, and congratulated itself, with a hug of the heart, upon safety.
“Take care, my dear,” cried Mrs. Ducksacre, looking large behind the counter, “or youʼll tumble down the coal–trap, where the black bogeys lives. Bless my heart, if it ainʼt little Loo! Why, Loo, I hardly knew you. You ainʼt looking like yourself a bit, child. And who sent you out at this time of night? What a shame, to be sure!”
Loo, the pride of Issachar Jupp, was rather a pretty little body, about three and a half years old, “going on for four,” as she loved to say, if anybody asked her; and her pale but clean face would have been very pretty, if her mother would have let her hair alone. But it was all combed back, and tied tightly behind, like the tail of a horse at a fair, or as affording a spout to pour the little girl out by. She looked up at Mrs. Ducksacre, while her fingers played with the coleworts, for her hands were hot, and this cooled them; and then, with the instinct of nature, she stuck up for her father and mother.