Volume 1849
Georges Dodds'
The Ape-Man: his Kith and Kin
A collection of texts which prepared the advent of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Presents
http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/mrjocko.htm

Author(s)

Link to Tarzan of the Apes

Edition(s) used

• J. Fogerty. 1891. Mr. Jocko 3 vols. London: Ward and Downey
• Thanks to the University of Alberta Libraries for a photocopy of their copy of Mr. Jocko

Modifications to the text

• Chapter titles placed in Table of Contents

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting?"-- George Eliot

Mr Miles was a wholesale dealer in nails, or what was termed a nail-factor or "middleman."In these days he would probably be called a "sweater,"but at the period when this story opens, about thirty years ago, those who dealt with him were content merely to call him a "screw,"although he did not deal in screws, which are chiefly made at Birmingham, where his principal place of business was situated.

Tobias had branch establishments or "ware'usses,"as he termed them, in several dismal towns and villages of the nail - making districts, at one or other of which he attended on a day in each week to receive and pay for the nails he purchased, and to sell the iron rods required by the grimy nail-makers, amongst whom, at the same time, he invariably distributed religious tracts, of which he always carried a large supply on his journeys.

Miles was a tall, lanky man, about fifty years of age, with a pale face, which generally wore an expression of metallic hardness. He had straight thin lips, and a wide mouth, which he had a curious trick of expanding still wider by compressing the lips tightly together when cogitating, whilst he grasped his projecting chin with a bony left hand. His eyes were large and rather restless, of a dull grey colour, and were overshadowed with dark, wiry-looking eye-brows. He wore seedy black cloth clothes on week days, which were greasy and shining in many places from the friction engendered by his occupation and a habit he had of rubbing his trousers above the knees when he sat down to rest. On Sundays he always appeared in garments of glossy black cassimere, of rather clerical cut, and with his neck swathed in the folds of a stiff white neckcloth, tied in front with a small bow. He wore this neckcloth, with gradually darkening tint, right through the week, and was believed never to take it off until Saturday night came, when its original whiteness had totally disappeared. Tobias seemed to think his style of dress gave him an air of peculiar sanctity ; he was most anxious to be esteemed a pious man, and, as a matter of fact, he was a religious man, according to his lights, and just such an one as the teaching of a narrow sect in which he had been brought up might be expected to produce. He was ignorant of most things outside his own business, but prided himself greatly on his knowledge oœ the Bible, from which he continually made inaccurate quotations, accepting every word in a strictly literal sense as having a distinct bearing on the daily events of life, so that he could always find some satisfactory scriptural sanction for anything he did, coupled with wonderment that the morality of his dealings did not precisely strike other people in the same light as he viewed it himself.

Tobias was not a hypocrite in the ordinary sense of the word, although many people called him so, but he had practised self-deception so long that virtually he was now a transparent humbug, incapable of understanding that he was so, which is a form of mental obscurity pervading society to a greater extent than is generally imagined.

"Please the Lord,"Tobias repeated as he inserted a key in a large padlock which secured the door of his warehouse. "Drat it!"he exclaimed immediately, "some ungodly boys 'as bin stuffin' peas in the key'ole. Wot's to be done?"

"Please, Muster Miles, 'ere's a 'airpin for to poke out the peases," said a stout young girl, with a very dirty face; who formed one of a group of females of all ages assembled round the door, each one carrying a small sack full of nails. "I seed Tummy Jones a-puttin' of 'em in,"she added. "He said as 'ow it 'ud mak' you cuss wusser than a tom-cat in a sack."

"Swear not at all,"said Tobias solemnly. "Here, girl, you git 'em out if you can with your 'airpin. Tom Jones 'ull come to 'arm sooner or later when his full time is accomplished. Why didn't you tell 'im you'd tell me, and that I'd larrup 'im when next I see 'im ? 'It is as sport to a fool to do mischief, and a rod is for the back of 'im that stops his neighbours key'ole,' them's the words of King Solomon in his Proverbs. Your name, I think, is Betsy Clinker? I'll give you a ha'penny if you git out the peas."

Betsy diligently assailed the keyhole of the padlock with her hairpin on promise of this liberal reward.

"There's grit in't too,"she said presently. "Grit is worth more than a ha'penny to worrit out of a key'ole. Peases y ou can squash wi' the key, but grit 'as to be 'ooked for."

"I'll mak' it a penny, Betsy,"said Tobias. "Try what blowin' into the 'oie will do for the grit."

Betsy essayed to blow into the keyhole with a force almost equal to a smith's bellows.

"It's got in my eye,"she exclaimed, lifting a coarse and very dirty apron to her face. "A penny is no good if you git your eye blinded and can't see to count the nails."

Tobias vouchsafed no reply to this fresh demand, but again inserted the key in the padlock, and with some trouble succeeded in opening it.

"Here is your penny, Betsy,"he said. "I agreed with you for a penny. Go and wash your eye with cold water. There's a pump next door, and they'll charge you nothin' for the use on't if you tell 'em I sent you. I'm afraid you 'elped that rascal Jones to put peas and grit in the lock. You seemed to know all about it. There is a tract for you called 'Evil communications corrupts good manners.' When you've read it -- if you can read it at all -- then you can lend it to your crony Jones. It may bring 'im to repentance."

"Oh, but you be an ode screw wi' yer tracks and texes,"said Betsy, shaking her clenched fist at Tobias' back as he entered the warehouse followed by about twenty poorly clad, miserable looking women, carrying hempen nail bags on their shoulders.

Just then two men hurriedly entered the premises, and passed inside the counter at which Tobias was standing.

"You are late, you two,"he said sharply. "I've 'ad to spend 'arf-an-hour idly waitin' outside the door, and to pay for clearin' of the padlock, w'ich you might 'ave saved me if you'd a-bin in time."

"You told us to look round the smithies afore we kem in, to see 'ow they was off for rods, and we've been on the tramp all the mornin' 'untin' of 'em up," said one of the men. "Some of 'em is buyin' of Reynolds,"he added, "and they says they saves two shillin' in the 'undredweight, 'sides gettin' better iron."

"Tell 'em to tak' their nails to Reynolds to pay for his iron,"said Tobias angrily. "Now then, who comes first? It's you, Mrs Dunkey. Let's see w'ot you've got; jest empty 'em here in the scale. Brads!"he cried to his men when the little grimy sack was emptied into the hollow iron scale-bottom,"and lots of 'em crooked and split. You've been buyin' iron of Reynolds, I s'pose? Twenty-four pounds, Timmins, and four to deduct for wastrels,"he sang out, as he shook up the scale-bottom and closely scanned the contents. "Say twenty pounds net, that's fourteen-and-six, and nine-and-six owin' for iron, leaves five shillings to pay. Are you satisfied or not, Mrs Dunkey? If not, tak' 'em away and try if Reynolds 'ull buy 'em, or someone else with money to throw away."

"Please, Muster Miles, they're all med of your own iron. We've 'ad none o' Reynolds', and they oughter weigh a good quarter of a 'undred. It should really be six-and-six at the least,"said the poor woman, gazing anxiously at the heap of nails in the scale-bottom.

"Six-and-six, my good woman! 'Ow ever do you expect me to pay rent and taxes for this 'ere ware'us, and give you more than I can get for 'em by 'olesale -- not countin' on bad debts with jerry-builders always failing? Say five-and-three, or fetch 'em out o' the scale and bag 'em again yourself."

"Five-and-six at least, Mr Miles. Do'ee be a little fair; and yer ought'nter charge so much for the rods. One bundle was as bad as bad could be, so as all to burn away in the fire,"pleaded Mrs Dunkey earnestly.

"I'd not tak' 'em at all but that you owes me for the iron,"said Tobias in still sharper tones. "Tak' the money, or leave the brads as s'curity until you can pay me what you owes. That's on'y wot's fair 'tween man and man, or woman either."

Mrs Dunkey raised her thin hands in deprecation and looked up at the roof, then sighed heavily, and sadly said : "Tak' 'em; we are a'most clemm'd jest now, 'sides owin' for coals."

Tobias made a rapid signal to one of his men to empty the scale-bottom into one of a number of large bins fixed round the walls of the store, then, without wasting more words, he handed over five-and-threepence, wrapped in a tract, to Mrs Dunkey, and proceeded to call the next woman on the list, with whom he continued the same style of "haggling"until the bargain was concluded. And so he went on for two hours, varying his method now and then by refusing altogether to take some particular sack of nails of whose quality he did not approve. Long practice enabled him to judge rapidly at a glance as to the value of the parcels submitted to him by the wives of the nail-makers, whose husbands seldom appeared on the scene.

Tobias Miles drove his hard bargains by a kind of cruel instinct, giving the least he possibly could for the manufactured article, and charging the highest market price for the raw material, which the thriftless nailers were satisfied to purchase from him on credit -- ultimately to be paid for in nails -- and yet he was thoroughly satisfied with himself, and not only had a conscience at ease, but conceived that he was acting as a sort of special Providence to the wretched people who were forced by stern necessity to sell their small wares to him.

Last of all came Betsy Clinker, whose usually warm temper had undergone no cooling down at the neighbouring pump, and whose red and inflamed eye did not appear to have been benefited by the cold water cure recommended by Tobias. She had been obliged, unaided, first to labour hard at the pump handle until the water flowed in a copious stream, and then quickly to dart her head under it in the hope of washing out the grit from her eye; and in this process she had saturated her clothing, and converted the normal coat of dirt on her face into dark vertical streaks, which in no way added to her charms. Cold water was a thing she abhorred, as a rule, and in the shape of a deluge from a pump, in the fashion she had recently encountered it, it was particularly aggravating; therefore she flung down her sack of nails on the counter in a defiant manner and jerked out the word "Scuppers,"the technical name of the contents, as if it were a challenge to Tobias. This class of nails was sold by number and not by weight.

"'Ow many?"said Tobias, who was referring at the moment to an account book, and did not look up at the bedraggled Betsy.

"Six thous'nd inch and 'arfs."

"Dump 'em out,"said Tobias curtly.

Betsy seized the bottom corners of her sack and vigorously shook out the nails in a conical heap, which Miles bent down to examine.

"They're mostly short 'uns,"he said. "Lots of 'em 'ull 'ave to go as inch. W'ot for did you mix 'em like that, girl? You must tak' 'em 'ome again and sort 'em."

"You're a bloomin' liar!"said the irate Betsy. "None of 'em's lesser than inch and quarter, and only a few a' that'n."

"Ho! ho! Miss Spitfire -- I'm a liar, am I? Here, 'ook it out o' this directly. Bring a scoop, Timmins, and shove 'em all into her sack again, and then bundle her out for a wild cat."

"'Ere's that track o' your'n,"said Betsy when her sack was refilled, as she produced a wet and dirty scrap of paper. "You're an ode 'umbug, and a cantin' 'ipercrit, you are; that's w'ot folks sez o' yer. Ode 'Arry 'ull 'ave his claws in yer 'fore long, for cheatin' and lyin', and you'll 'ave red 'ot nails druv in your 'ide, and most of 'em 'ull be scuppers, as yer allus lies about. Yah!"she concluded defiantly, thrusting out her tongue, and showing her gleaming teeth, as she shouldered her sack of nails. "You'll find summat in your key'ole next time, Muster Toby, that 'ull mak' you swear a good 'un, and more in't times arter times."

"You are my witnesses, men," said Tobias solemnly, turning to his two assistants, who were grinning in amusement. "You've witnessed, both on you, that I reviled her not again, though she called me an 'ipercrit. If you comes across the father o' that young wirago, tell 'im to clip her tongue afore he sends her 'ere again. She oughter get a month on the treadmill for abusin' o' me like o' that, and her 'ull never come to no good-neither in this world nor in the world w'ot is to come. 'Her tongue biteth like a sarpint and stingeth like a nadder.'"

Betsy was by this time out of hearing or she probably would have further enlightened Tobias as to her private opinion, and the opinions of the Dudley nailers, regarding him and his dealings. As she strode sturdily away in the direction of her father's smithy she came upon a small group of rough lads engaged in playing a game of "marls," as they termed it, which seemed likely to end in a free fight from the strong language then being loudly interchanged. Betsy descried Tom Jones vociferating in the midst of the group, with his back to her and straightway clutched him by the collar of his jacket.

"'Ere, you come along wi' me, Tummas," she cried. "I'm got to 'ave a chat wi' yer that's pertickler."

"Lemme finish this game, Betsy," he replied, shaking himself loose. "Butty Tubbs 'as bin cheatin', and I've 'arf a mind to lick 'im."

Betsy deposited her sack on the grouud, and sat down on it to witness the completion of the game, which she quite understood.

"I'll lay a penny on Butty," she said.

"Butty" was a nickname attached to the lad Tubbs in reference to the nature of his employment in a neighbouring colliery.

Betsy held up the penny she had received from Tobias Miles as evidence that she was the possessor of sufficient capital to warrant her in making the bet.
"Done wi' yer, lass," said the over-confident Jones, at the same time making a wild shot at his opponent's marble and landing his own in a bad place, of which fact Tubbs immediately took advantage.

"That's game," he cried; "now, Tummas, you shell out to Betsy."

"I 'av'n't got a blessed copper," said Jones, turning out two dilapidated pockets in a torn pair of trousers, as if he was in search of a stray coin.

"Then w'ot for did you bet wi' me, you rogue?" said Betsy, rising from her seat in wrath. "Ere gi'e me your cap to 'old till you pays me. You know where to come for't, Tummas. "Upon which the impecunious Jones added insult to injury by placing the tip of his thumb to his nose and spreading his fingers out.

This was too much for Betsy. She suddenly smote aside his outspread fingers with her left hand, and dealt him a severe blow, full on the nose, with her clenched right fist, which was as hard as iron, and brought the blood flowing freely from the assaulted feature.

Tom Jones was too much astonished by Betsy's sudden attack to retaliate at once in kind -- which we fear he would otherwise have been ungallant enough to do, -- he merely stood stock-still, with his snub nose thrust forward, bleeding copiously, and shaking his head from side to side as if to ease the stinging pain, when at this moment Tobias Miles loomed on the scene, as he wended his way to a small inn where he had ordered his dinner. He knew Jons very well by sight, as he had often suffered wrongs traceable to that practical joker, and now he stopped with evident satisfaction to hƒve a good look at him in his damaged condition.

"I guv it 'im, Muster Miles, 'cos o' that key'ole o' yourn," said the cunning Betsy, suddenly recollecting that she might take a mean advantage of the situation. "Now will yer 'ave the nails if I takes 'em back? Yer oughter, yer know, seein' as 'ow I've saved yer the trouble of larrupin' of 'im, as yer said yer would."

"You called me an 'ipercrit' and a 'liar,' Betsy; then 'ow can you expect me to buy your short scuppers? Still, I can forgive you as I 'opes to be forgiven, and I'll consider on't when I've eaten my dinner in thankfulness, because this 'ere Jones has been righteously punished. It has been truly said by the wise king of Israel that 'the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood.' It seems to me, Betsy, that you are not altogether unregenerate, seein' as 'ow you've hastened to mak' some atonement for your wicked words by lickin' of this reprobate as he deserves. You may call at the ware'us in an hour hence with your nails, and let me look at 'em again. But keep watch over that lively tongue o' yourn; 'the end of it is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.'"

With this amended quotation Tobias stalked off, leaving Betsy and the lads to their own devices. And now the indignant Jones, who had recovered from the shock he had sustained, and was wiping his nose on his sleeve, seemed inclined to renew the battle, whereupon his male companions were magnanimous enough to interfere and take Betsy's side in the quarrel. She had, meanwhile, armed herself with a large stone, and stood watchfully on the defensive, and they thought that, although properly meant for their associate in wickedness, the missile might hit someone else in its flight, and cause further complications; therefore they hustled Jones into a corner, and kept him there, leaving Betsy free to depart, sturdily carrying her sack on her shoulder, and with it all the honours of war.

Well, perhaps not, but that is not the question just now. She is merely introduced as a type of a class of persons with whom Tobias Miles had to deal every day. We can only describe the people we write of as they actually were in the locality at the period of this story, excepting that we are compelled somewhat to modify their speech and dialect, lest it should be incomprehensible, or shock fair readers, who, if they were born and brought up amidst Betsy's surroundings, would probably be very like her.

Still, Betsy has her good points. She is independent in her ways, and can sturdily fight her own battle in that condition of life to which --as the catechism says -- it has pleased God to call her. She can exist and thrive under conditions in which my Lady de Montmorency would absolutely perish. If Betsy is angry, and thinks she has a just cause of quarrel, all the world in her vicinity will hear of it speedily, and if she can avenge herself on her enemy with her strong right arm, she does not hesitate to use it. She evidently has her ready wits about her, also, and can cunningly make use of them in emergencies, but when her battle is won, she can easily forget all about it, and bury the tomahawk for the time being. She will then smoke the peace pipe with her discomfited opponent 'ere his injuries have ceased smarting.

There is not much apparent affection in Betsy's nature, because she has had but little experience of kindness at home or abroad during her short life-time, but if a small sister of hers is ailing or cross, she will take the child on her lap and rock it to sleep, or merrily hoist it on her shoulder, as she hoists her nail sack, and then prance about with the little girl in the sunshine, whenever the sun can penetrate through the pall of smoke which hangs over her dingy habitation.

Smoke cannot be a very unhealthy thing when you are used to it, as since the time when Betsy had the measles in her infancy she has never had any other serious malady. Toothaches and ear-aches, and small matters of that kind, don't count with her as illnesses, and she knows nothing of heartache, though she has often been hungry and wet and cold. She has a waist like that of a small buffalo, and the arm of a young blacksmith. She can scarcely read printed letters, and dislikes reading as she dislikes cold water. She is just a hardy kind of rough animal like an armadillo, whereas that delicate slim-waisted creature Lady de M. has "nerves," and suffers from the "vapours" and a host of fancied ills, and although she will not smite you openly when she conceives she has cause for smiting, you may be sure that if you offend her you will catch it some day unawares, especially if you happen to be of her own sex; and as to making it up with her again, you will find it as difficult as trying to soothe a fretful porcupine.

Our friend Tobias Miles is not a nice person, we admit. He is certainly too much given to quoting Scripture like the arch-enemy of mankind on special occasions, and he grinds the faces of the poor, but he has heard so much about the wiles of his dark Majesty from the rostrum of a dingy chapel in the days of his youth, that he seems to have taken to Bible quotations as a kind of charm against the evil eye of a horned and cloven-footed being whom he believes to be constantly around, although invisible, seeking whom he may devour, especially those who venture to differ from Tobias Miles in matters of business or belief.

Tobias is hard in his dealings with the poor nailers, perhaps because the iron has long ago entered into his own soul, and he unjustly screws at least ten per cent more than he ought out of the earnings of men and women whom he considers to be heathens and half savage, because he has been taught that, as one of the prosperous "elect," it is his duty to hand over exactly that amount of his profits to propagate the narrow teaching which has obscured his mind and enslaved him. But, then, do we not see everywhere men, who are esteemed highly-respectable and conscientious, with precisely similar tendencies? Are there not well-known "screws" in the payment of wages to their employés, or who are "hard as nails" in their money dealings with others, who are most liberal in their public offerings to some form of fanaticism like that to support which Tobias Miles paid his tithes?

Tobias had been moved at one time in his life to commence open-air preaching, on the top of an empty beer cask pitched on a waste piece of ground close to an English church. He was well aware that his loud voice distracted the attention of the congregation, and was a special aggravation to one of the churchwardens, with whom he had had a difference, and who ultimately succeeded in putting the preacher to silence by hiring a Scotch piper to attend regularly and play upon the bagpipes in front of the cask whenever Tobias ascended it to hold forth.

Tobias consoled himself by calling the piper "a son of Belial," and other equally opprobrious names, which seemed to have the effect of inciting the player to greater efforts in the way of producing discordant music, to the delight of some rough lads, who finally upset the cask whilst wildly dancing round it, and compelled the occupant to beat an ignominious retreat.

Driven from the exhibition of his eloquence abroad, Tobias devoted his attention to indoor exhortations at his chapel, wherein lay brethren were invited to speak on some occasions; but his attempts to set up a theory that the millenium was close at hand, coupled with his assertion that it had been revealed to him in a dream that he was to convey frightful warnings to such of the brethren as were sceptical on the subject, induced the society to hold a special meeting, and to prohibit him from public exhortation in future.

Tobias was very near retiring in disgust from a community which included such perverse brethren, but just then a domestic affliction befell him in the loss of his wife, and he was publicly reminded that this must be a "chastening" sent to him for attempting to sit in judgment on folks who conceived they were as good or better than himself, and who were satisfied the dream was either a direct instigation of Satan, or a delusion connected with indigestion.

Tobias was thus for a time obliged to confine his exhortations to the domestic hearth, and to bore the few people of his household who could not use drastic measures to compel him to mitigate the infliction. It was said by persons who professed to be well informed that his deceased wife had succumbed to the everlasting flow of his eloquence; but that statement was probably an exaggeration. Still, his wife's sister, who was a widow with means of her own, and who came to keep house for him, seems to have heard this rumour, for she had stipulated that she and her daughter should have appropriated to them a separate sitting-room, into which Tobias was welcome to enter provided he refrained from preaching therein. If this rule were infringed, Mrs Weston was to be free to depart, and as she was willing to contribute to the household expenses, and to act as a mother to Tobias' two sons, it seemed good to him to accept the imposed condition on account of the collateral advantages, although his heart burned within him now and then to throw off the yoke and resume his tiresome homilies. But as time went on he saw clearly day by day that he was most fortunate in having such a woman as his sister-in-law to manage his domestic concerns. She was quiet and methodical in her ways, and had obtained great influence over his two sons, who as they grew up seemed to grow more and more attached to her. Tobias was also fond of his pretty niece, Ruth Weston, who was clever and intelligent, and who never appeared afraid of him, as his boys had been during their mother's lifetime, when he had adhered so rigidly to the precepts of King Solomon in his treatment of them, acting on the conviction that severe correction was the necessary sequence to trivial offences, and that it was contrary to Bible teaching to "let his soul spare the rod for the children's crying."

How much the youth of this generation have to be thankful for in the fact that the belief in the exceptional wisdom of the Eastern Monarch is on the wane, with the belief in miracles in general. Boys may have been very unruly in Solomon's time, but a potentate who was so foolish as to plague himself with a number of wives must often have had a hard task in keeping the peace between them, and probably discovered that the punishment of their male offspring was the most effectual method of bringing his womankind to order. The ladies of the harem must naturally have shuddered, when the chief eunuch received orders to divest young Rehoboam of his scanty attire and to select a hazel rod, because his mother had called the Queen of Sheba "a blackamoor," and thrust out her tongue at her, a bad habit that seems to have commended itself to indignant females in all ages, as recently witnessed in the conduct of Betsy Clinker.

Tobias, when he got home from Dudley that evening to his comfortable house in the outskirts of Birmingham, detailed to his sister-in-law and niece, after dinner, the special grievances of the day, which it was his custom to entertain them with whenever his self-esteem had been wounded, for although he seldom received much commiseration, it was a satisfaction to him to make it known how much forbearance he had exhibited under great provocation.

"The hussy called me an ''ipercrit,' and thrust out her tongue at me," he said, "and yet I was enabled to endure her revilings with meekness, and to repay evil with good; indeed, I dealt with her for her merchandise, lest she and her people should suffer 'unger[.]"

Now although Tobias always lapsed into something like the dialect of the nail-makers when in their neighbourhood, he did his best, with an occasional slip regarding the letter h, to adopt the language of educated people like his sister-in-law when in their society.

"The stout lass punished a reprobate who did me an injury," he continued, with a grim smile of satisfaction; "she smote him on the nose even as a prize-fighter smiteth, and caused it to bleed as an ox bleedeth in the shambles. There must be some good in her after all. I heard you say you wanted a strong girl to help in the kitchen, Mary; perhaps this rough wench might be trained to your hand, with a little trouble, so as to fill the place -- her wages would be low."

"I am afraid it would involve considerable trouble to tame such a rough creature," said Mrs Weston, smiling. "She might smite me on the nose during the process."

"She is as strong as a young elephant," he said; "the last girl you had wasn't worth her wages, and could scarcely lift a coal-scuttle. Now, this Betsy could easily lift you and the scuttle too. It would be doing an act of Christian charity to take her away from evil company."

Tobias knew well that now he was approaching his sister-in-law on the soft side of her character.

"Do send for her and see her, mother," said Ruth, "I'll give her a lesson every evening if you keep her, and teach her not to fight with people if I can."

"She would be sure to break a lot of things, Ruth," said her mother; "these rough girls who swing big hammers, and can use their hard fists in fightin[g] can't hold a plate in their hands."

"You could make her tie up her 'ands in a woollen stocking steeped in potash every night," said Tobias; "that'll soon soften 'em. I used to do it when I gave up working at the anvil; it 'ud soften the tail of a brass monkey, and make it limp in a week."

"Better to put her to do washing for a while, with plenty of soda in the water," said Mrs Weston. "We could give her coarse things at first to scrub in hot water, and perhaps she could be induced to wash her face in the water occasionally."

"Yes, that 'ud improve her appearance," said Tobias curtly. "I'm afraid, Mary, you'll be frightened of her when you see her face; it's generally as black as a nigger's."

"Where can she be seen?" said Mrs Weston in a dubious tone, on hearing of this last peculiarity of Betsy's.

"She'll be sure to come to the ware[']us in Dudley with her nails next Friday," he replied, "and I'll tell her to come here and see you, and to wash her face first. I'll give her money for her journey, and if you don't like her, you can pay her fare back again -- about a crown 'ull be the entire loss if she don't suit."

"Let me go with you to Dudley next Friday, uncle," said Ruth. "I would like to talk to Betsy, and see if it is possible to teach her anything."

Tobias ruminated a while before answering, and rubbed his chin with his hand. He had never invited his sister-in-law or niece to visit any of his places of business, and he did not desire that Ruth should be present whilst he drove his hard bargains, Mrs Weston and her daughter only knew in a general way that he dealt in iron and nails. His two sons were almost always away from home, at a good school in a northern town, and they knew still less than the women about the nature of his occupation. They had observed that his business caused him to be much absent from home, and that he always returned from his journeys rather grimy and depressed.

"Yes, perhaps it 'ud be best that you should talk to her, Ruth," said Tobias at length. "She might refuse to come if I spoke to her first. But Dudley is a smoky hole, and you 'ad better put on something as isn't worth much if it's spoiled. Please the Lord, I'll be done with it and the nail trade some day soon, and I 'ope I may find a business that won't wear out so much clothes in the working of it, or keep me so much on the run. There's a queer sort of an old place for sale out there in the west part of the next county, beyond the smoke, with something 'anging to it, I fancy, that'll pay more in a month than what I make in a year at present, though I do regularly set aside the tenth for the cause, and a blessing oughter follow in the shape of increase, which sometimes I'm doubtful of. It's because I'm in the wrong trade, I think, and am driven into unholy tempers by the women I've got to do with, as has tongues that are like the piercings of a sword. Remember, Ruth, it is written in the Proverbs that 'a soft tongue breaketh the bone.'"

As Mrs Weston had a suspicion that Tobias was likely to hold forth on this test, of which she did not see the immediate application, she rose and retired to her own apartment with her daughter.

Tobias remained behind looking over a dog-eared account book, which was the only kind of secular reading, excepting an odd newspaper, that he ever indulged in. Then, before he retired to rest, he read aloud to himself one of the Psalms containing maledictions on the enemies of King David, which he thought had a special application to a number of persons with whom he had had unsatisfactory dealings.

Ruth Weston travelled to Dudley with her uncle, and visited the warehouse with him at au early hour on the day of his next visit. She sat silently inside the counter, listening to him bargaining with the nailers' wives, and gradually her eyes became suffused with tears as she began to comprehend how hard he was in his dealings, and how wretched the poor women appeared to be. She stole outside the door, at length, to follow one woman a little way down the street, who was carrying away her sack of nails in search of another purchaser. Ruth put some money in the woman's hand, and said: "I am very sorry for you. I think my uncle is vexed to-day, or he could not have spoken so sharply."

"No miss, he's like o' that mostly; he sends some on us back ivery week wi' our sacks full, but often he'll buy the same lot o' nails next time 'ithout grumblin' overmuch. It's jest to keep us fro' bein' too uppish; but I 'adn't oughter take your money for now't. I'd like to pay it back next Friday, if you come again wi' your uncle."

"You are welcome to the money, my good woman. I heard you say you had four young children wanting food at home."

"Yes, I've four little 'uns, as is mostly 'ungry, but the neighbours 'elps a bit, when Miles won't part, jest to carry along till next pay those as is unlucky wi' your uncle. We club for't, so to speak, to get the better of 'im; you won't tell 'im so, I 'ope."

"No, I shall not speak of it. Can you tell me if a girl called Betsy Clinker will be likely to come to-day?"

"Yes, Betsy often comes late; she stops to gossip wi' lads on the way up, but there isn't any harm in her. She's young yet, though bein' so big for her years. She's a rare 'un to jaw wi' Muster Miles when 'er back's up. She guv it 'im 'ot last Friday as ever was. What d'ye want o' Betsy?"

"My uncle thinks it would be good for her to be in house service, and I have come to see her about it."

"Yes, it 'ud be good for,'er, no doubt, but not so good, p'r'aps, for them as 'ud try to manage ber. I 'ope you've got a motber as can 'old a tight 'and over a lass wi' a will of her own. She'd twist a young lady like you into garter-strings if you vexed ber. But here she is herself, comin' up the street wi' a quarter-'undredweight on her shoulder, by the look on't -- that's likely what med her late -- she's been restin' agin the lampostes to recover breath, wi' her sack planted on the collars of 'em, that must 'ave bin cast on a purpose. Here, Betsy, lass," the woman cried as the girl drew near. "'Ere's a young lady as wants to talk wi' yer. Ground your sack for a bit; you've got time enough, Toby is'n't 'arf tbrough yet. You'll excuse me, miss, for leavin' you wi' Betsy, but I mind the market 'ere is a'most over at ten o'clock, and I'd like to change your money into summat for the little 'uns, as I'll tell as ow you've bin so kind. The young lady is niece to Muster Miles, Betsy," she said ere she departed; "she's a good sort, so, lass, you mun be civil."

Betsy deposited her sack on the ground, and sat down on it, then gazed admiringly at Ruth's hat, and slowly let her eyes descend to the wearer's pleasant face, finally scanning the young lady downwards to her boots.

"Wot be yer wantin' o me?" she asked at length.

"My mother has sent me to have a talk with you, Betsy. She has heard of you from my uncle, and of what a hard life you lead, carrying heavy weights like that you are sitting on. Tell me how old you are."

"I'm risin' on twelve. Be you much more'n that?"

"I am seventeen, Betsy, and I couldn't carry half that load if I tried."

"No; it's lucky for yer not to want ter. It's 'eavy to-day 'cos father's bin workin' up fag ends o' rods for big spikes, and p'r'aps Toby won't buy 'em arter ail, then I'n got to carry 'em 'ome or elsewheres -- I'd loike to chuck 'em in a ditch."

"My uncle will surely buy them from you to-day, Betsy. I shall speak to him, He wants you to give up carrying such loads on your shoulder; it will make you to grow crooked. It will be better for you to be in service, to learn useful things, and earn wages to buy yourself good clothes, and have time to wash your face and hands regularly."

Ruth added the last observation with some diffidence, fearing it might be deemed too personal.

Betsy rose from her extemporised seat and said angrily: "W'ot's Toby got to do wi' me and moy face and 'ands, 'ceptin' to buy the nails as I lugs to his shop, and can't get him to gimme a fair price for 'em, wi' lyin' and cheatin,' and preachin' and tracks and texes more'n a parson. Ugh! Can you gimme a 'and up wi' this 'ere sack, and come along and listen to 'im yourself? But p'r'aps he preaches and tracks you at 'ome, so you'll not want to hear more on't. Did you buy that 'at o' yourn in Lunnon?"

"No, Betsy, I bought it in Birmingham; and if you come there to our house I'll buy you a nice straw bonnet, and boots, and other things. But you must wash you face and hands, you know, or you'd spoil them."

"W'ot do you want me to do for you in Brum at yer 'ouse?" inquired Betsy, still curiously gazing at the hat.

"To help in the kitchen, and to do washing. Then in the evenings I'd try to teach you to read. I suppose you can read a little?"

"I don't want no more teachin'," said Betsy sullenly, "nor tracks, nor preachin'. Would you gimme plenty o' tommy?"

"I suppose you mean food, Betsy? Yes, you would have good food, and plenty of it, and no preaching."

"Then where 'ud ode Toby be?"

"Do you mean my uncle?" said Ruth, laughing. "Oh, he is not often at home, and he doesn't preach in the house. Probably you'd seldom or never see him or hear him. You would be told what to do by my mother, and she would pay you a pound every month at first, and then more if you are good and obedient. You are not to fight with anyone, you know."

"I s'pose as Toby tell'd you I'd fought wi' Tummas Jones for cheatin' o' me?"said Betsy, smiling. "He thought it was along o' his ode padlock, as was stuffed full o' peases and grit by Tummas. I'n got to give Butty Tubbs summat by-'m-by 'cos, he promised to come and 'elp me wi' this 'ere sack, and he's never coomed. I'll clout 'im over the 'ead for't. Now, I mun git in wi't or Toby won't tak' 'em arter ten. I'll talk wi' you when I come out 'bout goin' to Brum, but I mun ask father first or p'r'aps he'd gie me an 'idin'."

With this Betsy hailed one of her female friends who was leaving the store, and received from her the necessary assistance in hoisting the sack of nails to its original position. Ruth returned to the ware-house, and waited there until Betsy's turn came; then she crept close to Tobias and said : "Please give her a good price for her nails, uncle. I think she will corne to us if you do."

Tobias first asked Betsy if she had given the reprobate Jones any further punishment. "The key'ole was al l right to-day," he said in a tone of satisfaction, and then with less bargaining than usual he paid for her nails, and told Betsy to run home and see her father as to giving his consent to her leaving Dudley, which poor Clinker, who had another daughter grown enough to take Betsy's place in working the bellows and carrying sacks of nails to the store, was glad enough to do, as it made a mouth less to be fed at home.

Parents in his condition of life in the "nail country " were very much like the birds, anxious to get the young ones out of the nest as soon as they could fly. The promise of the bonnet and boots and plenty of food weighed a good deal with Betsy, who came joyfully, later on, to Ruth at the little inn to make arrangements for departing on the Monday following, promising meanwhile to do all in her power to get the black off her face and hands, and to postpone for the present the "clouting" she had proposed to administer to the faithless Butty Tubbs.

Fortunately there was then on the premises, engaged as cook, a kind-hearted Yorkshire woman, who at Ruth's request took her protégée in hand, and commenced by cutting off the tangled masses of dark hair which were twisted into a great bunch on the back of her head. Betsy submitted quietly to this operation, whilst Ruth stood by and told her that it would be a great improvement, and in evidence pointed to her own short curling locks; but when, following on this preliminary, the cook proceeded to more serious measures of a sanitary nature in the privacy of the scullery, Betsy began first to shed tears, and then to show fight like a rough colt at the first introduction to the curry-comb.

Cook presently appeared upstairs in search of Ruth. That lass mun 'ave her 'ands tied behind her back before I can do aught more wi' her," she said. "She can fight like a mon, and I'm fearin' she's gi'en me a black eye."

"I am afraid, Ruth, we must send her back again, "said her mother ; "it was a foolish experiment to engage in, and I can't conceive what made your uncle undertake it."

"I'll go and talk to her first, before we decide to send her back," said Ruth. Then she descended to the kitchen, and heard Betsy loudly sobbing in the adjacent scullery. Ruth took out her purse and selected a bright half-crown, and with it exposed in her hand entered on the scene of recent combat.

"Betsy," she said gravely, "you must not fight with cook, who is kindly trying to make you look nice. See, if you are quiet for the next half-hour you can have this piece of silver for your own. I'll leave it on the table here for you to look at, and you can take it if cook says you have been good. Then you may come upstairs to see my mother."

"May I 'old it in my 'and when she's a-pullin' o' me about?" said Betsy, as she tried to stifle her sobs.

"Yes, you may hold it, and look at it as much as you please, if it will comfort you. It will soon be over, and then you will scarcely know yourself in the looking-glass."

"Then tell her to take off that big ring on her finger. She's 'it me wi't twice on the 'ead, and she's not to poke soap in my eyes and mouth neither, and I'm very 'ungry."

"Yes, I will tell her to take off the ring, and you shall have your supper soon. Then you can come up and see my mother before you go to bed."

As the resuit of this timely intervention Betsy presented herself at the parlour door later on looking subdued and much improved in appearance. Mrs Weston asked her many questions about her family, which she answered readily, explaining that her mother had died some years previously, and that she had three younger sisters now living at home; also that she had had a brother who had been killed by an explosion in a mine, and that her father was getting old, and could hardly earn enough to keep those who were left, and she would like to send him the half-crown Ruth had g iven her. "P'r'aps,"Betsy said, "Mr Miles would take it and give it to her sister for him in Dudley when she came with her nails next Friday?" She thought Tobias would not forget to do so if Ruth told him, otherwise she feared he might omit to hand over the coin.

Here cook appeared to carry off Betsy to her room, and it was evident that peace had been fully established, as Betsy slowly put her hand, in token of submission, into that of the kindly woman and followed her quietly.

"Poor girl," said Mrs Weston when alone with her daughter, "it was good of her to think of sending that half-crown to her father. I suppose you had to bribe her to submission, Ruth? She is not at all a bad-looking girl, now that one can see her face better. I must see about getting her some clothing to-morrow."

"I can't say, mother, whether Betsy is glad or sorry just now that she came here to have her great mane of hair cut off and get such a scrubbing from cook? I think cook deserves another half-crown for her successful efforts; it will console her if the black eye appears vividly in the daylight."

"Better to buy her something, Ruth. Those Yorkshire women are very proud, and she may be vexed if you offer her money for doing an act of kindness entirely outside of her regular work."

"Suppose, mother, you were to give cook a half-holiday to-morrow, and some money to purchase clothes for Betsy. I think she would best understand what to buy, and where to go for suitable things, and then perhaps Betsy would be grateful to her and more obedient."

"You are a wise child," said Mrs Weston as she rose and kissed her daughter. "I think, between you and cook, you may succeed in taming this rough creature; but it will not be easily done at once. You will have to persevere, and be patient, and firm also. It won't do, Ruth, to try to subdue her with half-crowns every time she gets angry."

Ruth soon found that she had undertaken a task which would tax her patience and the cook's firmness to the utmost. Wild colts are not broken in in a day even by Mr Rarey, and one can't tie up one of the legs of a female biped and use the whip, even sparingly, as we would do with a four-footed animal.

The first difficulty in the kitchen department arose out of a fracas with the butcher's boy, who had carelessly placed his muddy hoof on a door-step which Betsy had just whitened, and straight-way received the contents of a pail of dirty water in his shining countenance, quickly followed by the iron pail itself, which Betsy clapped, mouth downwards, over his head, to his utter discomfiture and amazement.

Another of Ruth's half-crowns had to be given as a "solatium" to this outraged youth, who talked loudly of haling Betsy by summons before a magistrate for the assault, but was ultimately appeased by the timely offering.

Betsy could scarcely be induced to promise that she would not repeat this summary method of treating careless butcher boys, but she had seen how the offender was compensated by Ruth, and reflected that he was thus undeservedly a gainer because of her violent attack, and could triumph over her with a new half-crown in his pocket. This was very galling, and contrary to all ideas of justice in Betsy's mind; therefore she threatened to kill the butcher boy "right out" next time he offended, and explained to him contemptuously that when he was dead and buried crying for half-crowns would do him no good with "ode 'Arry," who was supposed to be indifferent alike to tears and silver coin, and had, she averred, an insatiable craving for the carcases of butcher boys.

It was noticed that the lad became rather morose after this appalling intimation, and finally disappeared from the neighbourhood, as it was believed, to engage in a business of a less risky nature as regarded a future state, or at all events to take up some walk in life that would not lead him into Betsy's vicinity.

Tobias Miles was the next person who incurred Betsy's wrath, although the method she adopted for punishing the master of the house, because he had complained in sarcastic tones, one Sunday morning, that his boots were not properly blackened, had to be kept profoundly secret by Betsy's fellow-servants lest it should lead to her dismissal.

Betsy deposited a couple of live beetles in one of his boots, and a half-dead mouse she had captured in the other, and then danced a kind of war dance in pleasant anticipation of results, winding up by standing on her head on the kitchen table, when Tobias was heard suddenly to scream out in a hysterical fashion on the staircase, where he usually put on his boots.

Tobias strongly suspected Betsy to be the author of this indignity, but as it occurred on a Sunday he deferred investigating into the matter until next morning, when the supposed culprit readily found an excuse for the presence of the mouse and the beetles in the boots by gravely alleging that "mices" were very fond of blacking, and as for beetles, she declared that they would eat througb cast-iron to get at it.

"I'm afraid, Betsy, you are telling lies," said Tobias solemnly. "There was never a mouse nor a black beetle in my boots before you came, and if I finds 'em again, you've got to 'ook it. It might 'ave caused me to die in a fit. Remember w'ot 'appened to the wife of Ananias, and the kind o' fits unto death she and her 'usband fell into 'cause o' lies they'd bin tellin' the Apostle Peter, who, I think, oughter 'ave been more merciful to 'em, seein' as 'ow he once told a whacker himself, when the cock crowed to remind him on't.

Betsy had never heard of these alarming illustrations of the sin of lying, but concluded that Tobias was preaching or quoting texts for her benefit.

"Miss Ruth said yer wasn't to preach at me ef I com'd 'ere, or else I'd 'ave asked for more wages," she sturdily replied. "The cocks allus crows as if they wanted to split 'emselves at Dudley when you're buyin' nails and preachin' to folkses at same time[.] You'd mak' t' ode hens to crow, so you would, sayin' as 'ow I'd put mices and beetles in yer boots. I can't abear mices nor beetles nor tracks; they makes me 'oller out as you did when I sees 'em."

"Miss Ruth tells me she is trying to teach you to read, Betsy. P'r'aps some day she will give you that story of Ananias and his wife to learn off by heart."

"I'm only learnin' to spell small words yet, Muster Miles, like c-a-t, cat, w'ot 'unts mices up-stairs; b-e-t-l-s, beetles, w'ot eats blackin' and gets into boots, and causes folks to be preached at[.] Most cats eats beetles and gets sick on 'em, as if they was tracks and texes."

Tobias saw that he was no match for Betsy in theological argument, and decided to avoid such discussions in future, and to appeal to Ruth, to whom alone Betsy was very obedient, whenever he had cause to complain. He had been told by his niece that the girl was hard-working in her rough, energetic way, and that the cook had taken to her kindly; also that Betsy kept the tramps who came round begging or stealing at back doors in a wholesome state of terror, as one of her peculiarities was utter fearlessness in attacking any male creature, no matter how big, who incurred her wrath or suspicion. But as to her progress in learning to spell or read, Ruth was almost in despair at first. Betsy could get on pretty well with simple nouns referring to animais and things illustrated by marginal pictures in her book, but with the spelling and meaning of words other than these she found so much difficulty that Ruth was at a loss to discover some method of teaching which would arouse her interest sufficiently to fix the words and ideas in her memory.

At length Ruth hit upon the plan of getting Betsy to describe all she remembered of her previous life at home -- what she did during each period of the day, and what her father and sisters did in their hard struggle for existence, under conditions which were appalling for Ruth to hear graphically narrated in an uncouth dialect by the poor Cinderella, who had still left in her so much cheerfulness and animal courage after the battle for bare life she had been fighting.

Ruth endeavoured, with tears in her eyes, to make notes, of Betsy's sad story, as told in her own words, so that she could form some distinct idea of the narrow and dismal surroundings in which her stunted faculties had developed, and so by descending to Betsy's plane of vision to try to find some clue by which she could eventually lead her mind to higher things.

Ruth wrote out in block letters, in imitation of print, short sentences embodying the simple ideas with which Betsy was familiar, and then caused her slowly to spell them over one by one, and by degrees to associate the sentence with something she had recently described. Gleams of intelligence began to play over Betsy's features as she spelt out the words in which Ruth had restated the proposition, that unless her father remained soberly at home all the week, pounding at nails, there would certainly be a deficiency of food for the family as the natural consequence, ergo it was needful to keep a sharp eye on idle vagabonds who had on previous occasions led him away from his smithy to the public-house, and if needs be, Betsy would have added, it was wise to set fire to their coat-tails with a hot cinder, or to do them some other private mischief to hasten their departure, things which, she admitted to Ruth, she had frequently done and rejoiced in doing.

In about six months Ruth had overcome the chief difficulties in breaking in the rough fllly she had taken charge of. Betsy could then slowly read out some simple story, and evidently felt pleasure in making herself tidy each evening before she presented herself to receive her lesson. The efficacy of regular employment at the wash-tub in softening her rough hands was soon apparent, and she took pride in exhibiting them for inspection when Ruth began to teach her to sew properly, and was hopeful that before long she might venture on introducing Betsy to the mysteries of pen and ink when her fingers became more flexible.

Ruth discovered that Betsy was ambitious to learn to write, in order that she might communicate with her father at Dudley, who could read written characters. She had ascertained from the girl that the old man was rather rough in his treatment of his children, and had occasionally beaten her severely, but still Betsy always spoke of him with affection, and evidently considered that the blows she had received in times past were only part of the ordinary incidents of life in the familles of Dudley nailers, to be classed with thunder-storms of a passing nature.

Tobias Miles was more than usually absent from home at this period, and when at home was very absent-minded, evidently thinking of some new business project, so that he seldom saw or spoke to Betsy, whose course in life ran all the smoother in consequence.

One day he said abruptly to Mrs Weston : "I want you and Ruth to come with me to look at a property, with a queer old house on it, which I have almost made up my mind to buy. It's a ramshackle sort of place called Madeley Court, and I believe was a kind of 'monkery' at one time, with an old chapel attached to it, where the monks used to perform their idolatries. I want you, Mary, to give me your opinion as to whether a part of the place can be made habitable for us for a time by removing the furniture from here. If I buy it, I'll let or sell this house, and go to live there altogether; but l'm afraid you will find it rather lonely at first. I have a fancy for it, and I'm sick and tired of the nail trade. I can dispose of the business just now at a tolerably fair price, and wash my 'ands of it for good. Please the Lord, let us go see the place next Saturday. There is a little inn in a village not far off where I hƒve often stayed. It's a moderate place, and if you will stay over Sunday they can put us up comfortably. There is a small church, if you will go to church with Ruth -- and just a handful of the Lord's people, who meet in an upper room by themselves and keep the truth alive. I was among 'em last Sunday, and exhorted 'em a little. It was a time of refreshing."

"Why do you wish to purchase this old ruinous place?" inquired Mrs Weston, thinking it was about time to interrupt Tobias.

"Well, that I can't tell you just yet, Mary, and I haven't told anyone, but I think that it's a wise thing to do, and likely to lead to profit. I don't wish it to get abroad that I am thinking of buying it. The last owner was a lawyer, who bought the whole estate some years ago, and lives in a big house not far off with an only son of his. A branch railway was made through the property in spite of his opposition, and severed the land, so that the railway company had to pay a big sum for the sixty acres that was cut off, with the old ruin on it, and now they want to sell it again as he says 'he won't buy any part of it back, even as a bargain.' All the same I believe he would like to do so at his own price, and he thinks no one else will interfere. He is said to be a cantankerous old man, and a sort of heathen, who doesn't believe in God or Devil, and spends most of his time reading profane books written by heathens like himself, so one has to be cautious lest he should hear that I have an idea of buying the place."

"But you have not told me yet, Tobias, why you want to buy it?"

"Ah! that's my secret, Mary; -- you will know in good time. I think it's worth more than ten times what it's offered to me at by the company's agent, who has rather a spite against the old lawyer, who had led them a pretty dance during four or five years, and prevented the railway from being made all the time. If the old sinner only knew what I know he'd 'ave seen that the making of the line was the very best thing that could 'appen to him; but as Solomon says, 'a prudent man concealeth knowledge, and every fool will be meddling,' if you give him a chance."

"I am afraid you are going into a troublesome affair, Tobias, in meddling with this gentleman's land. It is not well to provoke a litigious man, especially when he is a lawyer. May I ask what the railway company want for the place?"

"It's a good sum, Mary, but not half what they had to pay for it. You might let the price slip out in someone's hearing if I was to tell you; you know that 'a jewel of gold in a swine's snout is a fair woman without discretion.' You have more discretion than most women, I'll admit, but all the same women 'ave tongues and walls 'ave ears, like little pitchers."

"I wish you wouldn't be always misquoting ridiculous proverbs, Tobias. You come to me to advise you and keep the gist of the matter to yourself. Can you afford to buy this place and to spend money on it?"

"Yes, I think I can afford it. Please the Lord, the money will return to me an 'undredfold. I'll be sorry to leave this, but keeping two 'ouses is only vanity and pride. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and an 'auty sperrit before a fall.'"

Tobias had approached an open window as he spoke, but suddenly started back with a kind of hysterical scream, like that he had emitted on discovering the mouse in the toe of his boot. "Lord save us, Mary!" he exclaimed, "w'ot's that on the window sill? Is it an emissary of Satan come to listen?"

Mrs Weston approached the window in alarm, and beheld a large ape perched on the stone sill, and apparently intending to enter the apartment.

"It's a huge monkey our neighbour has recently brought here, and keeps chained in a shed in his garden," she said; "it has made its escape, and climbed over the wall. It did so once before. whilst you were away, and was captured and taken home by Betsy ; she is not a bit afraid of him."

"Please the Lord, let her take him 'ome now," said Tobias, who had hastily retreated from the window, and was pale and trembling. "I've 'eard that the bite of a monkey is as bad as the bite of a mad dog," he added. "I thought it was the Evil One himself. Adam Clarke says it was in the shape of a monkey he appeared to Eve. I wonder as 'ow she could listen to the ugly thing, Mary, do ring the bell for Betsy. I think the beast is coming in. Ha! avaunt thee, Satan!"

Here Tobias shook his clenched fist at the animal, who responded to the threatening gesture by showing its teeth.

"You will make the creature angry, Tobias," said Mrs Weston as she rang the bell. "I am sure it is not savage or Mr Dixon would not keep it, and it went home quietly the other day. I'll give it a piece of sugar."

"Don't encourage it to come here, Mary. I'll tell Mr Dixon I'll summon him if the beast escapes again. He is always 'avin' some fad or another with ridiculous pets. Last year 'twas a badger, and the year before an 'orrid fox, that smelt like a polecat. He oughter keep 'em elsewhere in his managèry."

Here Betsy appeared on the scene, grinning with laughter. She had already had an interview with the ape, on his appearing on the garden wall, and had tempted him down with nuts, and then encouraged him to climb up to the window of the room in which she knew Tobias was seated. She now went straight to the animal, and addressed it in friendly tones as an old acquaintance, holding out her hands.

"Here, Muster Jocko," she said, "you come along wi' me. Muster Miles don't like you."

The ape straightway sprang into her arms, whilst Betsy stroked down his fur and caressed him.

"He's a good sort," she said, "but he don't like some folkses. Would you like to carry 'im 'ome, Muster Miles?"

"Take him away, Betsy; take him out 'o the 'ouse," screamed Tobias as she approached him. "Tell Mr Dixon he will hear from me if the 'orrid thing is at large again."

Just then Ruth came in, having heard of the new arrivai, who straightway held out one of his small hands to her.

"He knows honest folks, 'ee do, w'en he sees 'em," cried Betsy in triumph. "Bless 'im, I'd like to keep 'im for company, and to comb and brush his furry coat, fit to go to chapel o' Sundays. He'd soon learn to say his prayers, 'ee would, the dear old chap; but he couldn't abide preachin's nor exhorting."

To Tobias' great relief Betsy disappeared with this parting shot, bearing away the tame animal clinging to her neck as if it were a big child.

"That's a 'strordinary girl that 'ere Betsy," he said; "she seems not to be afraid of man nor beast. I'm thinkin' she 'ticed the animal over the wall to frighten me. It's just a thing as she'd delight in doing."

She found the owner of the creature seated in a kind of summer-house, in a large old-fashioned garden, engaged just then in drafting the text of an advertising poster addressed "To the nobility and gentry of Birmingham and its neighbourhood," and informing them in grandiloquent terms that Sam Dixon's unrivalled travelling circus and world-renowned collection of performing animals had returned from a tour through Great Britain, and would be open to the public that week in the "Midland Metropolis," by permission of the most worshipful Mayor and Corporation of the city, and under distinguished and exalted patronage.

Mr Dixon, who was a stout, florid faced man and looked like a well-to-do farmer, had got thus far, and was moistening the stump of a lead pencil between his lips whilst he pondered on the next paragraph, when Betsy appeared before him with her animated burden.

"God A'mighty bless us!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet on beholding the novel pair. "Blow'd if it ain't that enterprisin' Jocko as has broke loose again, though I bought a new chain and a patent padlock for the cunning crittur. Wherever did you find 'im, girl?"

"Please, Muster Dixon," said Betsy, "he com'd over our garding wall of his own self, and he's given Muster Miles a fright that's a'most turned his eyes in his 'ead, as if he'd seen ode 'Arry afore his proper time. He told me to tell you you'd 'ear from him summat pertickler when he'd recovered his senses and could write."

"'Owever did you 'ave courage to catch 'im and 'old 'im like that, girl?" said the circus owner. "He seems as fond of you as a sweetheart."

"I've see'd you feedin' him in the garding, Muster Dixon, and heerd you calling him 'Jocko.' But most beastes is fond o' me 'cause I'm not afeerd on 'em."

"What's your name, my good girl?" he inquired, "and where was you born? Seems to me you ought to be in my menagery in the lion-taming line. That there 'Jocko' once a'most bit a man's finger off who meddled with him, though he's a reformed character since he was hurt in riding a kicking pony in the ring. That's why I've had him 'ome here to nurse him a bit. You should see him flyin' through papered hoops from a hoss's back. with his scarlet jacket and gold-laced hat on. I'd not lose him for a pot o' money. He's the best-trained hanimal of his kind out o' Barbary, where they all cornes from. But tell me your name, and 'ere's a shilling for you."

"Please, sir, I'm Betsy Clinker from Dudley, and I'm in service next door with Mrs Weston; but if Jocko is worth so much, you oughter give at least an arf-crown for 'aving him brought back. Muster Miles might 'ave killed him, you know, in his fright if I 'adn't caught him, and Jocko might 'ave bit someone and costed you a lot."

"You're a sharp girl, Betsy, and if ever you want a better place than you've got next door, just you ask for Sam Dixon at the Royal Circus, or for his missus, here. I don't mind giving you a couple o' tickets that will pass you into the performance with a friend of yours any time we are open here this month. Have you ever seen our circus?"

"No, Muster Dixon, nor a wild-beastes show."

"Well, come along some evening, and p'r'aps you'll see Jocko performin' like a first-class acrobat. He may know you again when he sees you in the pit. Now give him to me to chain up. I'll fix him safer this time, but if he comes your way again, Betsy, just try to drive him back over the wall with a broomstick without touching of him. If you hit 'im he might bite you."

"May I come in to see him again, Muster Dixon?" pleaded Betsy, when the circus proprietor had gently disengaged Jocko, who was clinging to her neck.

"Yes, you may come in when you like, but you mustn't feed him and make him bad in his inside; he's a bit delicate since he's 'ad a kick from that durned Scotch pony, and he gets the spasms if he's fed on things as isn't good for him. He'll be all right next week, I think. But by-the-way, Betsy, did you give him anything to eat?"

"I giv'd him only three roasted chestnuts to coax him down off the wall," said Betsy.

"Ah! p'r'aps they won't 'arm him as they was roasted, but don't give him no more. Bread-and-milk is his proper diet just now. Our vet is 'tending on him, poor old chap, and 'tis beautiful to see him take his med'cine reg'lar like a Christian, as if he know'd 'twas to do him good. I'll 'ave to give him a tea-spoonful o' castor oil as a precaution along o' them chestnuts o' yours; monkeys in general likes castor oil, 'cause I suppose it comes from their own country, but if they won't take it out o' cussedness, I pretend to 'ide it somewhere in a bottle when they are slyly looking on, and then they steal it and swallow it."

Mr Dixon had secured "Jocko" with a strong chain by this time, but as Betsy walked away the animal made frantic efforts to break loose and follow her. "That's a most 'strordinary thing," he soliloquised as he watched Betsy slowly walking off with her head over her shoulder looking back at Jocko. "That stout lass is chuck full o' w'ot they calls hanimal magnetism. She's just the sort o' girl to train as a female lion-tamer. She's a little old, I'm fearin', to start in hoss-riding, but I'd like to try her at it. She don't know what fear is, she don't, and I dessay has nerves like cast-iron; but she's a kind-'arted girl too, and wouldn't welt the hosses into ridges out o' temper as some on 'em does. I'll just put down her name and address, She may come my way yet some fine day when she's tired of 'ouse work, unless a hidiot of a young man comes along to fill her 'ead with nonsense; that's w'ot spoils 'em for the circus. They don't properly give their minds to it, and are always looking round to see if he's in the gallery admiring of 'em, 'stead o' mindin' their jumps, until one day they comes a nasty cropper, and then they lose pluck and can't take the hoops no more."

During the next week Betsy appeared in Sam Dixon's garden on each afternoon, when her work was done, and renewed her aquaintance with Jocko, to whom she brought little packets of sugar, saved from her own meals, as nuts were tabooed. The animal, who was one of the most intelligent of its kind, seemed to look eagerly for her coming, and hailed her approach with a sort of joyous bark, which always brought out Mrs Dixon, in her husband's absence, to witness the interview, and have a talk with Betsy, to whom she expatiated on the glories of the circus, and the enviable position in life of the ladies attached to Dixon's circus in particular, who, she said, "were always treated most respeckfully, like female hartists," and travelled from town to town in gorgeous equipages drawn by four horses, heralded by drums and trumpets, and were fed like princesses on the route at Dixon's expense. Moreover, [they] had all Sunday to themselves, to lie in bed or go about improving their minds, according to the weather. Mrs Dixon informed Betsy that she herself never got up until noon, on Sunday or week-day, being in general occupied until a late hour at night in taking money at the circus doors, which was her particular vocation as Queen regent in the peripatetic establishment, and a thing that could not be safely entrusted to any of the frivolous princesses in her train. She had known proprietors of circuses, she said, who had come to signal grief by neglecting this wise arrangement and entrusting the financial department to strange deputies, whereas "Sammil," as she called her husband, had been able to purchase his house, with the large garden they were in, out of his savings; but they had unfortunately "neither chick nor child" to inherit it, which she thought made them both fond of sagacious pets like Jocko, whom she described as an orphan, born in one of the circus vans, and brought up by hand on goat's milk out of a feeding bottle, because his mother had succumbed to a fancy for picking up rusty nails and swallowing them, as was proved by the circus vet at a post-mortem on her dead body. Mrs Dixon had a private opinion that Jocko inherited this taste for old nails, just as dressmakers were given to swallowing pins until they came out at their elbows. It was true "Sammil" held that Jocko's illness was entirely due to the kick from the wicked "cuss" of a Shetland pony, who hated to have a monkey on his back, but she adhered to the nail theory, and time alone would show who was right, because when a female child of the lady artist who did Mazeppa, on a barebacked steed, took fits of screaming and turned black in the face, it was found to be all owing to a brass button, and children and monkeys were much alike in their tricks, which she supposed was the reason why philosophers thought they came from the same original stock. "Tails," she declared, were no argument to the contrary, as neither Jocko nor his hairy parents ever had any, which was a disadvantage to them when riding, as they required something to steady themselves by when standing on two legs, which didn't, she had observed, appear to come quite natural to them; but, to be sure, children went on all-fours at first, and would be likely to do so all their lives if they weren't smacked and made to stand upright, so perhaps the philosophers were right after all, as "Sammil," who was given to reading natural history books, thought they were. He believed Jocko was remote cousin to mankind, and perhaps took to Betsy because she handled him like his deceased mother used to do; anyhow, he had never been so fond of anyone before, not even of the lad Jones, whose business it was to feed him, but whom he had twice bitten, no doubt because of provocation. "But young children will bite, too, as bad as monkeys if you vex 'em, as I have reason to know, Betsy, although I have never had any of my own to bite me," Mrs Dixon sadly concluded, as if she regretted the loss of the dental infliction.

"Do you know, Mrs Dixon, where did that 'ere Jones come from?" inquired Betsy eagerly.

"We picked him up, Betsy, at Dudley, with a friend of his, about two months ago, to mind the small ponies; but I'm afraid they are a pair of idle lads, and fond of larkin' with the animais."

"Was his friend called Butty Tubbs?" Betsy asked with intense interest.

"Tubbs is one of his names, surely -- you seem to know 'em, Betsy?"

"Yes; I know'd both on 'em at 'ome in Dudley, and if Tummas Jones teases Jocko again, please tell 'im, Mrs Dixon, that I'll come and give it 'im 'ot."

Mrs Dixon laughed heartily at this, and said : "Why, he's a big lad, and more'n a head taller than you, Betsy. You'd better come to see the circus on Saturday next, when we give an early performance. Mr Dixon will let you go round into the stables under the galleries, and you'll see your two old friends. P'r'aps Jocko will be well enough to ride by that time. He's said to be the best monkey rider as ever was, and 'olds his whip like a gentleman jockey. Sammil says it ain't proper to call him a monkey at all; monkeys is smaller animais, and spends most o' their time scratchin' 'emselves, which Jocko is above doing, and you've got to strap 'em on the saddles or they'd jump off and 'ook it. You see, Betsy, I know the ways of all such creatures, 'cause the menagery was mine before I married Sammil -- it belonged to my former 'usband. We used to run it and the circus separately at one time, when there was more animais, but lions and tigers comes expensive in feedin', and in repairs to vans -- which they gnaws and claws the woodwork of -- so now we only keep a selection of tame beasts that will most of 'em walk round the ring in the great Mogul procession, with the elephant leading 'em. I used to ride on the elephant in a splendid 'howdy,' as the Queen of Sheba going on a visit to King Solomon, but Sammil says some pious people made a fuss about it, as being a story out o' the Bible, so we changed it in the bills to Cleopatra on her way to meet Mark Antony in Egypt, with the old giraffe stalking behind, and carrying a black eunuch with a big umbrella, who had to 'old on by the skin of his teeth -- giraffes being made with a lot o' slope in their backs. P'r'aps, Betsy," the good lady continued confidentially, "if you go next Saturday, Dixon may give a procession, with Miss Crespigny. as is one of our leading ladies, whose real name is Rorke, sitting in the howdy; but to my mind she don't look dignified enough, being rather skinny, and fond of showing her ankles, with bangles on 'em made out of big curtain rings, as don't appear to me quite proper in Cleopatra, though, to be sure, the Queen of Sheba may have worn such jingling things, being I'm told a black African woman, who probably had a fancy for glass beads and brass wire, as Sammil says is stated by travellers who have been in the country where she lived. Sammil reads a lot o' books before he gets up his processions, in order to have 'em correct."

Betsy listened with wonder to the voluble lady, who, having but few female acquaintances outside the radius of the travelling circus, and being on rather distant terms with the ladies attached thereto, as became the wife of the proprietor, had not many conversational opportunities in life, and made the most of those which fell in her way -- her pet subject being the splendour of the spectacles got up by "Sammil," who she believed to be a marvel of intelligence and ability in his vocation, and who was really very shrewd and clever, and consequently a successful man, with an easy temper and sufficient tact to smooth over the little squabbles amongst the members of the company, who were much attached to him and, in general, readily accepted his common-sense decisions.

"It's half the battle," Sam Dixon used to say to his wife, "to keep on good terms with the company, especially when we are on the move and the children are fractious. You just fill your pockets with lollipops, Sally, for the little 'uns before we start, and I'll take care of the mothers and see 'em properly fed, and arterwards give 'em a drop o' suffin 'ot to make 'em lively. There's nothin', my dear, like feedin' animais with your own 'ands to make 'em peaceable and fond of you, and men and women are only animais as has somebow got a long start in tbe race witb otber critturs -- sucb as Jocko tbere, who, if he has his meals reg'lar, is as lively and 'appy as the day is long, and 'ull take his 'oops as if he felt pride in earning his living and doing his duty in that state of life he was called to -- 'aving the pull over us in regard to tailor's bills and taxes."

"If Jocko could talk," Sam Dixon often said, "I'm sure he'd tell you he thought most of us fools, 'specially women, as is always worritin' about what they'll put on to outshine their neighbours. I fixed on a blue swallow-tail coat with gilt buttons, and white cord breeches and top-boots, wben I was a lad, as best suiting the profession I was follerin', and I've never seen any style o' dress I like better, so it's been ditto, ditto with me ever since, whereas I'm sure my wife lies awake o' nights thinkin' of Kitty Rorke's new fly-away bonnet and feathers, that wouldn't become her at all at her time o' life, if she only knew it, and just makes little Kitty a caution to look at, besides the 'stravagance in a young 'ooman as is thinkin' o' marryin' -- more fool she, that can earn her six pounds a week as long as she remains single, and can do her 'oops flying, with a spring a'most as good as Jocko's, who watches her out of a corner of his eye 'ithout being in the least jealous, whereas that Frenchwoman, as Kitty nursed when she fell under our black mare Vixen, turns green and clenches her teeth and 'ands when she sees Kitty go round the ring, gathering herself up on the saddle for a leap like a young panther; there's a deal of the wild-cat in a Frenchwoman when she thinks she has a rival in anything, and I often wish madame would take herself back to her own country."

"But, Sammil, you may 'ave to pay forfeit under her agreement," replied his cautious better half one day when this difficulty was under discussion.

"Better do that, Mrs D., than have a disturbance that will upset the whole apple-cart. Madame Cerigo says 'she won't ride on the same night as Kitty any longer,' and she's cut the black mare into ribbons in her bad temper. I think that's breach of contract enough; but I'd prefer getting rid of her peaceably if she won't be civil to Kitty, who is a favourite with the public, and might leave us for Astley's up in London, who, I know, 'ave been writing to her. I wish, wife, you'd invite Kitty to tea sometimes, and pay her a little attention just now to keep her in good humour."

"Sammil," said Mrs Dixon solemnly, "Sammil, you know when you bought this 'ouse it was agreed that it was to be kept apart from the circus, so that in the few months we are able to spend here we might feel ourselves to be in a higher spear. I don't object to Kitty Borke in her proper place, as is rightly on horseback, although she is as vain as a pet peacock with two tails, and wastes her money on 'ats and dresses that are neither becoming nor exactly proper for a young woman in her state of life, as calls herself a 'hartist,' and yet wears shorter petticoats than Madame Cerigo herself, who, being French, can't be expected to be over-partickler; still, as it is your wish, Sammil, I'll ask Kitty to spend next Sunday with us, and give her an 'int to come in a plain bonnet, if she has one, or if not to leave them red and blue feathers at her lodgings on account of our neighbours."

"I don't see w'ot our neighbours has got to say to it as long as I pay rates and taxes," growled Sam. "The man on our right hŠre was a travelling tinman, as once went about the country with a van full of saucepans, and is now in the lamp trade, making a fortune out o' railways, and keeping a carriage for his wife and daughters, as isn't above taking tickets as children under ten, when two of 'em's a long time out o' their teens. I don't know much about our other seedy-looking neighbour, but he has written to me to say he'll 'ave the law o' me if Jocko is loose again. He calls him an 'unclean beast,' my poor Jocko, that has fine fur like sealskin, and is as nice about his food and everything as if he was brought up on tea and dry toast in a young lady's academy."

"He shouldn't 'ave abusŠd Jocko, Sammil, as hasn't 'armed 'im," said Mrs Dixon with warmth; "but the lady on that side of us is a lady, I can see, by her quiet style of dress, a'most like a Quakeress, and her pretty daughter is a nice young creature, as wears no feathers in her 'at, and is trying to teach that girl Betsy, who says she is a angel o' sweetness. They always salute me respeckfully when we 'appen to meet, though they ain't ever called."

"Well, wife," said Sain as he rose, "it's settled that you'II ask Kitty here on Sunday, for the sake o' peace and quietness in the circus, and just remember to put on a plain gown so as not to disconcert her. If you wear that low-necked black silk of yours, which would stand up of itself, and show your plump shoulders, she'll be fidgetin' all the time, as shoulders and buzzum isn't her strong points, you know; besides, on a Sunday, we are told in Scripture, it's well to be clad like the lilies o['] the valley, or like the ladies next door you admire so much. I wonder as 'ow they ean live with that sanctimonious 'umbug, who looks like a decayed undertaker as 'ud sell you a second-hand coffin. He -- to 'ave the law o' me, indeed! -- a feller that it's likely has never been in a decent circus in his life, or in anything livelier than a chamber of 'orrors in a waxworks, and don't know 'ow to write a civil letter to the proprietor, but quotes the words o' Moses to slander an amiable animal that 'ud scorn to take a mouthful out of 'im lest it should disagree with 'im -- poor Jocko, as is ill and can't defend hisself."

"Jocko is quite lively to-day," said Mrs Dixon with evident pleasure; "that girl Betsy has been in and brushed 'im up nicely, and brought a looking-glass for 'im to admire himself in. You may put him in the bills, I think, Sammil, for next Saturday, when there's likely to be lots o' children 'ome early from school. I think they come 'specially to see 'im, and I'll beg 'em as they pass in not to feed 'im with nuts and gingerbread -- that lad Jones should 'take it out' of the pony before Jocko mounts 'im. I suppose Madame Cerigo will be jealous of Jocko, too, before long, and won't ride if he's mentioned in the same type as her ladyship. She has taken to answering me in French lately if I speak to her, though she can jabber English like a magpie when she likes, just because she knows I don't understand her lingo."

"It's said that two queens in an 'ive o' bees always tries to kill each other," said Sam sententiously. "Now, if Kitty wasn't running Madame Cerigo close in riding, besides being younger, they'd agree like turtle-doves ; but both of 'em is fond o' Jocko, as does his best to imitate 'em at the hoops, whereas if he was a human admirer of theirs, they'd pull fur about 'im, and Kitty 'ud be likely to lose her back hair, though that wouldn't hurt her much. Madame Cerigo's is all her own, I believe."

"You never can tell, Sammil," said Mrs Dixon seriously; "those Frenchwomen are up to artful ways of plaiting in 'air the same as their own as would deceive a microscope. I believe they get it fixed up in Paris, and sleep with their 'eads in a bag until they go back again to learn a new way of wearing it. The things I've seen in the way of improvers hanging up in her dressing-room beats the art o' man. At least you can't get 'em to buy in England, Kitty says, nor understand 'ow to fasten 'em on if you had 'em, being some on 'em like mousetraps covered with mohair."

"Mantraps I'd call 'em," said Sam, laughing; "but you and Kitty oughtn't to go poking into Madame Cerigo's dressing-room. I suspect that's 'ow the row began with Kitty; there are little innercent secrets in all professions, you know. The singers at the hopera 'ouses, I'm told, has often 'arf-a-dozen different noses in their kit to fit 'emselves with, according to the characters they are cast for, but 'ow they can sing with 'em on is a puzzle to me, seeing as a small cold in the 'ed will shut up any of 'em, especially females, as has often to squall loud enough to split your ears."

"Sam," said Mrs Dixon in a confidential whisper, "do you know that Kitty says she is sure that one of Madame Cerigo's eyes is made of glass. and so she can stare you out of countenance with it if you try to find out by looking closely at her? Her eyes are not both of a colour, certainly, like the eyes of that white Persian cat we had as wasn[']t thoroughbred."

"Oh, my eye!" said Sam, jumping up to go out, "I'm fearing you and Kitty will take Madame Cerigo to pieces next Sunday, and not leave her a leg to stand on. We must invite her here the Sunday after next, in her turn, and tben you'll hear that Kitty is growing a hump and has arms like crooked drumsticks. I'll go and talk to Jocko, and ask him to bite 'em both if they won't keep their tongues quiet. Why, in thc name o' wisdom, was women ever invented? or if they had to be, why aren't they all born dumb -- like Jocko's mother?"

A tall swell, who was the riding-master, and carried a long whip, came up and inquired if they had not mistaken the entrance door, but on learning that they were especially privileged persons, politely raised his glossy hat and directed them to go forward until they lighted on one or other of the "young eusses" they were in search of. And so in awe and wonder they crept along in the narrow passage behind the horses' heels. Some of the animais turned from their mangers to look curiously at the female strangers.

"Oh, ain't they just lovely, and fit for queens and princesses to ride on," exclaimed Betsy. "Here's one, cook, as is all cream colour, and I'm sure would let me kiss his pink nose."

"The hoss might bite you, Betsy. I'm fearin' we shall get kicked by some on 'em, walking so close to their 'eels."

"Not he,"said Betsy, fearlessly entering the stall and flinging her arms round, the horse's neck. "'Osses wot bites and kicks always puts their ears down and looks wicked. I've seed 'em do it."

"Why are you kissing my mare, girl?" asked a sprightly young lady who suddenly appeared on the scene, clad in a brilliant hussar jacket, having rows of gilt buttons thereon, and wearing voluminous snowy muslin skirts, which barely reached below her knees. She wore high red morocco boots, laced over flesh-coloured "tights," and held a neat little silver-mounted riding-whip, bent in her gloved hands.

Betsy gazed at her in silent wonder. She had never seen a live circus princess before, but as this one was small, like a fairy princess, and smiled pleasantly, Betsy was not afraid of her.

"Well, my lass," the princess inquired abruptly, "who are you looking for?"

"Please, miss," said the cook, intervening, "Betsy wants to see Mr Jocko, who is a friend of hers. She's been petting him all the week at Mrs Dixon's as lives nest door to us."

"Come along, then, with me. Jocko is in the menagery, being shaved and dressed and 'avin his 'air curled before he mounts his pony. I daresay he will let you kiss him if you like, though he's rather partickler, and would bite the noses off some people if they took such liberties with him. He's a modest young man, and hasn't got a sweetheart."

"Please, miss," Betsy ventured to inquire, "did Jocko ever let you kiss him?"

At this the princess burst into a peal of laughter. "Yes, in course," she said, "scores o' times. I only kissed him for his mother, you know, so you needn't be jealous. He was very small at the time, and 'adn't been put into trousers."

"He let me comb and brush him," said Betsy.

"Did he? Then you are a favourite of his. He's got a new dressing-case, with silver fittings in it, at home, and p'r'aps he'd spank himself up with bear's grease and go for a walk with you on Sunday as your young man. We've got a brown bear here that I daresay would stand a pot of grease if you was to kiss him for it. That is, when Jocko isn't looking on, you know. But you'd 'ave to be cautious."

Betsy began to see that the princess was joking, and thought it rather undignified in such a high-born lady.

"I'm very fond of Jocko," she said seriously, and Mrs Dixon is fond of 'im, and says he can ride 'most as well as any of the lady artises."

["]Does she? That's not bad for Sally Dixon. Did she tell you he ought to 'ave his wages riz, 'cause we are all going on strike soon for more pay and less work, like nailers?"

"Nailers isn't paid reg'lar wages, more's the pity," said Betsy, "and it isn't no good striking when there's so raany on 'em -- making more nails than is wanted."

"You are a queer sort of girl, you are," said the lively little lady. "Do you know that I'm one of the 'lady artises' Mother Dixon has been telling you of? My name is Kitty Rorke, though Sam will put a French name on me in the bills that he can't rightly lay his tongue to. Here's the door of the 'ole they call the menagery, which is sixpence extra to see. You'll find Jocko somewhere inside, in his dressing-room; give him my compliments, and say I'll 'ave another young man to ride out with, as I've heard of his goings on. Bye-bye. I can't abide the smell of the place or I'd go in with you, and talk to him myself so as to make his 'air curl. I'll see you again, p'r'aps, in the circus making eyes at Jocko, and causin' him to miss his 'oops. If he breaks his neck, you know, as we are all bound to do some day, you'll 'ave to go into crape mournin' a yard deep, with weepers on."

Betsy and her friend entered an enclosed apartment about sixty feet long by half the width, formed by large vans on wheels, with the iron-barred open sides turned inwards in a close row so as to form hollow walls, in which the beasts were caged. The roof was made of canvas, and the ground thickly strewn with sawdust.

From an aperture in one of the end cages projected the head and waving trunk of an elephant. To the right and left vans were appropriated to a sad-looking dromedary and a still more melancholy giraffe, both of whom seemed considerably the worse for wear, and had a faded "second hand" sort of appearance. These were the principal animals attached to the circus, and the leaders in the processions.

There were the usual minor animals in travelling wild-beast shows in the other cages, including a brown bear and two young lion cubs, but none of the larger carnivora. They were all making uncouth noises, according to the nature of each beast, as it was approaching feeding time.

Betsy glanced round in search of her "four-handed" acquaintance, and saw the portly circus proprietor, with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, overlooking a little group of men and boys standing near a deal table, in the centre of which sat Jocko, with his lips defiantly drawn back from his white teeth. In front of him she recognised Tom Jones, now well dressed, but in his shirt sleeves, holding up a little scarlet coat, whilst Butty Tubbs, also decently clad, cautiously approached the wary animal from the rear.

"He's just a little fractious on account of his long idleness," said Sam Dixon; "slip yer 'ands gently over his shoulders, Tubbs, and 'old him steady. Jocko, old man, take it easy; we won't hurt you."

Jocko suddenly faced round, and snarled the instant he felt strange hands on his body.

"I'm afeared of 'im," whined Butty, "he'll bite me if I lay a finger on 'im."

Just then was heard the loud sound of the brass band in the circus outside.

"Jocko is down for the second act," said Sam Dixon impatiently; "the performance is begun. Here, give me that small whip."

"Oh, Mr Dixon," burst in Betsy, "don't beat Jocko. I'll put his coat on."

At the sound of her voice the ape barked loudly, and then he sprang off the table into Betsy's arms. She rubbed him down gently on the head and back, then took the little coat from Tom Jones, and quietly drew it over Jocko's shoulders, whilst the strange creature licked her hands, chattering to himself now and then in low tones.

"Blest if I ever saw the like o' that!" said Sam Dixon. "Here's his 'at, Betsy; just slip the strap tight under his chin, and you, Tubbs, cut away for the Shetland pony and fetch him to the ring."

Betsy carried Jocko to the curtained side entrance to the ring, where Tubbs was waiting with the little pony, who had been well exercised during the morning by Jones to make him quiet, but who still looked back suspiciously, out of a corner of his eye, at his intending rider. Just then the low doors of the ring were opened to allow Kitty to dash in on her white Arab. She sprang lightly out of the saddle and fearlessly seized Jocko by the ears, rubbing his furry jaws all over with her hands, whilst Sam Dixoa planted him carefully on the saddle. Then, as the doors were opened again, Kitty gave the pony a smart cut behind, and sent him off at a gallop into the ring, where he fell at once into his pace, whilst Jocko raised one of his hairy arms to his cap to salute the audience. Betsy clapped her hands as she saw her poor friend careering round silently, with a solemn face, holding on firmly to the saddle, as if mindful of his late fall. The clowns placed the wooden bars in position, and the pace was increased. Jocko took his leaps cleverly, amidst deafening applause, whilst Sam Dixon vociferated "bravos," and loudly declared that he would back the animal to ride against any other monkey in the world for a thousand pounds a-side. He produced two lumps of sugar from his pocket, and gave one to the pony and one to Jocko when they came in acain, both heated and tired. and then Sam went off to tell his wife of the complete recovery of the clever creature and to find good seats for Betsy and her friend the cook.

Everyone has probably seen and enjoyed the performance in a good circus when young. Then the princesses on horseback were to our juvenile minds real princesses, and their spangled skirts appeared to be overlaid with diamonds, but to a poor ignorant girl like Betsy, who had never had a sixpence to spend on such things in her life the spectacle was overwhelming in its grandeur. The procession was a glorious pageant exceeding the bounds of imagination, and the daring horsemanship of Kitty Rorke and Madame Cerigo, who had patched up a truce between them for a while, filled her with wonder.

When Jocko appeared again, riding on a larger steed this time, and jumped cleverly through tissue-papered hoops, in imitation of the lady artists, Betsy hid her head on cook's shoulder and sobbed, "Oh, cook," she whispered in her friend's ear, "if my old dad and sisters could only see 'im they would be 'appy. Do you think Muster Dixon would let 'em in for nothin' just once, when next the circus is in Dudley?"

Cook recommended that Mrs Dixon should be appealed to, as controlling the issue of tickets, and said she felt certain the favour would be granted for the sake of Jocko, whose waywardness had that day been overcome by Betsy.

"I used to hate the sight o' monkeys, Betsy," she said, "but after what I've seen this evening I'll never again say a word again 'em lest I should be despising creatures as God has made with feelings like ourselves, and not much more hair on 'em than was on the child of a Welshwoman I knew, who had great eye teeth, like tushes, sticking out of her mouth, longer than Jocko's. She had a temper, too, wusser than that of any monkey as ever wore a tail, and often looked as if she'd like to bite you. I had to spend nine months under her as kitchen-maid, when I was young, and I oughter know the nature of her, which wasn't human, though she knew her business and could stand the fire like cast-iron. She called herself a 'widder,' but I've heard her 'usband ran away from her 'cause she bit him, and took to keepin' a lighthouse on a desert island, where she couldn't get at him any more."

"And was the child like Jocko?" Betsy inquired with awe.

"Not half so good-looking, Betsy; it was a boy, and only chattered Welsh to his mother when he came to see her, as no one but theirselves could understand. It was very like what Jocko kept saying to himself when you was putting on his little coat, and oftentimes just as if they was cracking nuts between their teeth and spitting out the shells. The mother used to say it was the oldest language in the world, and was spoken by everyone before the flood, when all the beasts could talk it and understand. If so, Noah must 'ave 'ad a lively time of it in the ark."

Here a tall well-dressed young man, who was seated next the cook, and had evidently listened with interest to the conversation, burst into laughter.

"Do you think the Welshwoman and her son would have understood Mr Jocko?" he inquired.

"That I can't say, sir," replied cook, "but it would be just as easy for me to understand Jocko as to make out what they said, exceptin' that the mother seemed mostly to be scolding him, and he appeared always to be telling her he was hungry, from the way he looked at any victuals that lay about."

"That, it appears to me, is what monkeys generally have to say to one another in similar cases," he replied, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. I have no doubt Jocko's mother scolded him a good deal when he wanted nourishment at inconvenient times."

"Jocko was brought up with a feedin' bottle, on goat's milk," said Betsy. "His mother died when he was very small."

"Ah! So you seem to know all about him. Did you help to feed him? or did his foster-mother the goat assist whenever he broke the bottle, as he grew up and got mischievous?"

"Indeed, it's all true, sir; Mrs Dixon will tell you if you ask her, and I don't think Jocko would do any mischief if folks was good to 'im."

"I should like to see more of him in private life," he said. "Perhaps you belong to the circus, and can tell me where and when I can do so?"

"You can see him every day, I believe, sir, in the menagery close by, on paying sixpence," said cook. "We don't belong to here, but this lass knows Jocko well, and is fond of him, and he of her."

The young man looked with much interest at Betsy, who was just then absorbed in the contemplation of a fresh marvel in the performance of the elephant, who was taking supper with a clown at a rickety crossed-legged table, and did not seem to enjoy the viands provided, into which we fear sawdust largely entered as a condiment.

"You are fond of animais, I think," he said to Betsy.

"I am fond of beastes that won't bite me if I handle 'em," said Betsy; "but I never saw so many on 'em before, 'ceptin' in the pictures in a spelling book, as is all very small."

["]Our Miss Ruth at home is teaching her to read from a spelling book," said cook in explanation, "and the owner of the circus lives next door, and had Jocko there for awhile, and so the lass got to know 'im, and it's wonderful to see 'em together. I think it's because they feed him on bread-and-milk, he is so tame-like and friendly with her."

"Yes, no doubt that has something to do with it, as with the mild Hindoos, but I can see that Jocko is exceptionally intelligent. I'll go and see him closer tomorrow, and I am much obliged to you both for the information you have given me. I came here especially to see him. I am studying animals of his species; they are distant relations of ours."

"It seems impious to say such a thing, sir," said the Yorkshirewoman with pious horror.

"Yes, no doubt it does to many people, but it's true all the same. Now I must wish you good evening; the performance is nearly over."

"That's a real gentleman, that young man is, one can easily see, Betsy," said cook solemnly; "but, oh! he shouldn't say such things as are contrary to Scripture."

"Mrs Dixon said the same," Betsy replied, "and she oughter know, as 'avin' 'ad so much to do wi' beastes all her life, and knowing Jocko ever since he was born. I'd much rather 'ave 'im for a cousin than that hairy Welsh boy you knew who had such an 'orrid mother."

Tobias had virtually concluded all arrangements for purchasing the property with the agent of the railway company, and was only anxious to know if his sister-in-law would be content to take up her abode in the lonely place with her daughter before he decided on the question of repairing the half-ruined buildings, so as to render them fit for habitation.

For reasons best known to himself, Tobias had hitherto been very reticent about this purchase, which he had negotiated with the company's agent without the intervention of a solicitor. He had frequently visited the place in secret, and satisfied himself that the investment he was about to make was a good one, the only drawback being the large outlay which would have to be made before he entered into residence and began to realise his great expectations of profit.

Tobias had a special contempt for farming operations, as involving much labour for small returns, and he had no idea of turning farmer. He was destitute of all archæological taste or knowledge, and looked on the curious old pile of hewn stone, with its quaint gables and mullioned windows, as so much building material fantastically put together in monkish times to shelter people who were, in his opinion, no better than pagan idolators, who worshipped graven images, and invoked the intercession of dubious saints -- men who lived in idleness and dirt, and extorted hard-earned money from ignorant peasants under pretence of performing miracles or remitting sins.

This may have been true as regarded the inhabitants of older ecclesiastical structures than Madeley Court, which had been built by a respected abbot of simple tastes in the sixteenth century as a retreat wherein to take refuge from the troubles which the control of a large abbey by the Severn side entailed on him at a time when such institutions were in decadence both as regards their revenues and the morals of the monks.

The abbot had built a private chapel attached to the house, and surrounded the place with a moat, now quite dry, but at one time spanned by a wooden drawbridge, for which an earthen mound, crossing the moat, had been substituted. The house had been located rather low down in a small but picturesque valley called "the Dingle," so that it was almost hidden in a grove of old elm and oak trees, tenanted by a lively colony of rooks.
The place had not been inhabited for thirty years past, and was now almost a ruin, save that the roofs had been kept in tolerable repair by the owners. The last tenant had been a farmer, who stored grain in the refectory, and hay and straw in the old chapel, and had constructed stalls for his cattle and horses in the vaulted basement storey.

Tobias and his party travelled through Dudley by railway to a station about a mile from Madeley Court, and put up at a small inn in the little village close by, from whence they journeyed on foot to the old house, which was then in charge of a caretaker with a wooden leg, who had on previous occasions gone over the premises with Tobias.

Ruth wandered through the empty rooms with her mother, and both were filled with wonder as to the reasons which could have induced Tobias Miles to entertain the purchase of so singular a ruin. They looked into the grass-grown courtyard and fancied they could see moss-covered tombstones half hidden amidst tall weeds. They entered the little chapel, which had suffered less from the ravages of time than any other part of the building, and saw that the massive oak timbers of the roof were perfeet, but had turned white from age. The stone-paved floor was level with the principal floor of the house, and consequently stood at some height above the courtyard and the moat. The chapel was roofed over with thin slabs of stone, closely jointed together. There was a small bell turret in the centre of the chapel roof, and clasping a huge beam beneath this turret was a rusty flat bar of iron, formed into a depending hook at the end.

"That's what led me to think there was something underground worth looking into," said Tobias, pointing to the iron hook.

He tapped heavily with a stout cane on the stone floor, and the sound indicated that there was a hollow space beneath.

"The monks sank a deep well just under here," he said, "and made a circular staircase of stone, projecting from the inside of the well, right down to the bottom -- over an 'undred feet -- with an iron handrail fixed to the rock all the way. I've been down in it and seen what's below. They didn't find water -- at least not much, nor any fit to drink -- but they found coal, and the old chaps worked it for fuel when they wanted any. It's the same coal as the upper beds of the Dudley collieries, and not far further down, I am certain, lies the ten-yard seam. Sixty acres of that is a big fortune, and, please the Lord, it will be mine."

"But surely you didn't venture down in an old disused shaft, uncle, without first displacing the gas by some means?" said Ruth.

"That's the most extraordinary part of it," said Tobias; "there is a small drift-way at the bottom in the sandstone rock, leading towards the river, through which the water drains off and a current of air enters. The well is nearly dry, but not big enough for the shaft of a coal mine. A proper pit or a pair of 'em will have to be sunk outside and a winding ingine put up. Now, I must live here and see my money well spent while all that is going on. I fancy it will take every penny I can spare after paying for the land and selling the nail business. It will be wearisome for me living alone, but I'm fearing you don't like moving here, Mary; still, if a part of the old place was put in tolerable repair and furnished, it wouldn't be so bad, and being all mostly on one floor, it could be made comfortable. I'd spend five 'undred pounds in repairing half-a-dozen of the rooms. I am going to put one of the boys in 'an ingine factory at Manchester, and to 'prentice the other to Perkins, the mining engineer, so there would only be three of us here, with the servants."

"I am afraid it will be hard to get any servants to live in this lonely place," said Mrs Weston dubiously; "and then there is Ruth's education to be considered."

"Send her to a good boarding school for a year," suggested Tobias, "that's what I hear is proper for young ladies nowadays. She can come here now and then for her 'olidays and see us mining for the black diamonds."

"Let us look round again and see if it can be managed," said Mrs Weston. "I am afraid it will cost more than twice five hundred pounds to make even a few of the rooms habitable. Why, there are no casements in those stone windows, and the floors are like touchwood, full of holes. Would it not be better to build a cottage close by?"

"That might take a year to do, Mary, whereas we could get in here in three months at the outside. No, it must be here or nowhere, and I won't mind spending a thousand pounds if it will do. Please the Lord, it will be well spent money. Tobias Miles, Esquire, of Madeley Court won't sound bad."

"Are you quite sure about this coal, Tobias? Have you had it examined into by an expert?"

"No, I'm no such fool. I am as sure of it as I am that I am standing over it in the body, I know the quality of each seam in the Staffordshire coalfield by sight, as 'avin' 'ad to burn tons of it in a smith's forge. If I had called in a coal viewer or a mining engineer I might 'ave said goodbye to the purchase; it would have been snapped up at once by colliery owners in a dozen places at six times the price. Did you never hear of the 'great fault,' Mary ? The coal suddenly ends dead again a rock wall, and drops down beyond any known workings. Here it tilts up again, near the surface, under the red sandstone. The Lord seemingly has reserved it for discovery by one of His servants, to make his latter days plentiful like the last days of Job."

"I should like to see this singular well," said Mrs Weston.

"Hush!" said Tobias, pointing to the caretaker, who seemed to be contemplating the iron-shod toe of his timber leg, but was really attentively listening. "The well is under the floor of this old chapel, in what I believe they call a crypt, as is a sort of dark vaulted cellar where the monks was buried," he whispered cautiously; "but the way into the cellar is my discovery I'm thinkin'. I knew it was there, because there's the remains of an old doorway, that's been built up in the wall of the moat outside, half covered with ivy; but I just stumbled by accident on a narrow stone stairs, made in the thickness of the wall, that leads down to it, and then I came on lumps of coal strewn about on the floor which the monks forgot to take away. That wooden-legged idiot has never been down there, I am certain, or he'd 'ave collected the coal instead of burning logs o' wood that he steals out o' the copses. Please the Lord, I'll give him the sack next month when the purchase is completed. He is always hanging round, dogging my footsteps, and spying out of holes and corners. I'm told he was an old poacher."

"Does the agent of the railway Company know of this coal beneath?" Mrs Weston inquired.

"I fancy if he knew, Mary, he wouldn't have let it go to me at the price he did. I wasn't such a fool as to tell him. He might 'ave happened on it if he had looked about him, and as he didn't look, he has got no one to blame but himself."

"It appears to me, Tobias, that you ought to have spoken of it. It is like a man buying a piece of furniture at an auction knowing there were valuables secreted in it."

"Then I think the law would say he had bought the valuables too, and the law is mostly right. This place was twice put up to auction, that's how I came to hear of it. I daresay it was fore-ordained that I should be in the neighbourhood buying a 'job lot' of nail rods from a bankrupt's stock, and having missed a train, I read the auctioneer's poster at the station, and strolled in here and saw the iron strap on the beam. That, I said to myself, wasn't put there for nothing, and is a'most wore through with carrying the 'ook of a pulley at some time or another. Then I saw that there was a round stone flag fitted in the pavement, where it is likely the rope went through a hole to the well, I wonder if the rope ever broke and let any of the fat monks drop to the bottom when they were sinking the well, before the stone steps was built in? Then they would be part of the way down to the kingdom of Satan, where I believe many of 'em is in permanent residence."

"Don't say such horrid things, Tobias. The monks were useful in their time, and no doubt many of them fully believed in what they taught. The world has grown wiser since then, that is all. Later on, the things you now believe in may seem to be absurdities to those who will then be in a better position to judge."

"The Word remains sure and steadfast," said Tobias, who was always ready for a theological argument. "There may come a falling away, as is prophesied, but a remnant will hold to the truth as we have it now."

"That is the whole question, Tobias. Do we yet know what is truth, or shall we ever know? But this is useless talk. I must consider about removing here, as I suppose you have made up your mind to leave Birmingham. I confess I have misgivings about this business, and if I had known that you contemplated so great a change I should not have parted with my house at Warwick. I left much that was pleasant and intellectual behind me there, and perhaps it will be better for me to return with Ruth. I can do nothing for the boys here, especially as you are sending them into new walks in life with strangers, although I see no objection to that."

"They will often come here, Mary, to see the colliery and the new works, and some day they will be here altogether. Remember your promise to their mother."

"Yes, I do remember it; but this removal was never contemplated then. Change of abode always causes me perturbation. Like the cats, I get attached to places, and feel as if one's fur was being rubbed the wrong way if I am asked to move."

On leaving the old house they wandered through the Dingle to a spot from whence they could see the distant winding river and the extensive ruins of a Norman abbey on the opposite bank.
"The old 'drift-way' runs in that direction," said Tobias, "and perhaps was used in troubled times as a means of communication, or for running down the coal to the river. I've been down in it for about fifty yards, but was stopped by a 'fall' in the roof. I may 'ave it cleared out some day, but it will only be of use to partly drain the water off the new pits, instead of lifting it to the surface."

"Did you find that the monks ever worked the coal to any extent?" Mrs Weston inquired.

"No, not that I could see,"said Tobias, who seemed suddenly struck with this fact, and paused to think out the bearing of it.

"Then, perhaps, the well was not used as a coal shaft at all, Tobias, but as a secret means of communicating with the abbey or the river underground. I think that is why there are steps leading down. I noticed that the huge fireplaces all seemed formed for burning wood. The monks would never have sunk a well for water under a chapel. They would naturally have made it in the courtyard."

"But the coal is there all the same," said Tobias abruptly. "I brought a piece of it out of the vault, and showed it to Perkins, who agreed with me it was the same coal as lies under Dudley. I didn't tell him where it came from, of course. It does not matter what the old shaft was sunk for. The coal is below."

"You seemed to think that the monks had accidentally fouhd coal when sinking a well," Mrs Weston ventured to remind him.

"Yes, I thought so at first, but it's of no consequence."

"I think, Tobias, you ought to have it looked into more carefully by an expert before you close the bargain," she urged with seriousness.

"I have closed it, and paid a deposit of a thousand pounds, and signed an agreement to pay the balance in a month," he answered with some temper. "It wasn't to advise about a thing you don't understand I asked you to come here, Mary, but about the old 'ouse, and the furnishing of part of it. I think I know as much about coal and iron as anyone in the Midland counties, and I know it's there. Besides, I took counsel of the Lord by opening the Book with a pin after prayer for guidance. The text I lit upon was 'Wot thy 'and findeth to do, do it with thy might.' If that wasn't a clear direction I don't know what is. I know, Mary, you don't put any faith in that sort of questioning of the spirit, but didn't brother Hamsbottom, when his boy was sick unto death, open on the words, 'They that are whole need not a physicking,' and then he dismissed the doctor, and the child began to recover."

"I think if brother Hamsbottom read the whole text correctly he would have retained the physician, Tobias; but so long as we are endowed with reason and common sense‚ I think we should use our faculties and not try such haphazard experiments. It's like having recourse to what is called the 'divining rod' to find water or minerais underground. Wise men have always denounced it as an imposture."

"Yes, such things are not for the wise and learned, Mary, but for simple believers. I'm not quite clear about the 'divining rod,' but there's a-many folks believes in it. Moses used a rod to discomfit Pharaoh's magicians. I've a notion to let a man who is said to inherit the faculty of using it give me an idea of where I should sink the pits. We oughter use all lawful means to gain knowledge. Your husband used to laugh at such things as superstitions, and I'm afraid he taught you to doubt in miracles that are as sure as the rocks which are the foundations of the world. I didn't mean to vex you, Mary," he added, seeing that his allusion to her deceased husband had brought sudden tears into Mrs Weston's eyes.

"I wish he could be here to advise you now, Tobias," she said quietly. "He knew more about the rocks and the foundations of the world than most people, although he wouldn't pin his faith on texts or divining rods. I strongly recommend you to take the opinion of some scientific man like him as to this coal question before you spend your money."

Ruth, who had walked on ahead down the Dingle during this conference, here returned with some curious ferns in her hands which she had plucked up by the roots and meant to transplant to her garden at Birmingham. She requested her mother to name them, which she readily did.

"I fear my uncle has been quoting texts, mother, you look so serious," she said, laughing.

"Yes, he has been quoting texts,