"Quite a family likeness between the admiral and you, Mr. Freely,"observed Mrs. Palfrey, who was looking at the family portrait for the first time. "It's wonderful! and only a grand-uncle. Do you feature the rest of your family, as you know of?""I can't say," said Mr. Freely, with a sigh. "My family have mostly thought themselves too high to take any notice of me."At this moment an extraordinary disturbance was heard in the shop, as of a heavy animal stamping about and making angry noises, and then of a glass vessel falling in shivers, while the voice of the apprentice was heard calling "Master" in great alarm.
Mr. Freely rose in anxious astonishment, and hastened into the shop, followed by the four Palfreys, who made a group at the parlour-door, transfixed with wonder at seeing a large man in a smock-frock, with a pitchfork in his hand, rush up to Mr. Freely and hug him, crying out,--"Zavy, Zavy, b'other Zavy!"It was Jacob, and for some moments David lost all presence of mind.
He felt arrested for having stolen his mother's guineas. He turned cold, and trembled in his brother's grasp.
"Why, how's this?" said Mr. Palfrey, advancing from the door. "Who is he?"Jacob supplied the answer by saying over and over again -"I'se Zacob, b'other Zacob. Come 'o zee Zavy"--till hunger prompted him to relax his grasp, and to seize a large raised pie, which he lifted to his mouth.
By this time David's power of device had begun to return, but it was a very hard task for his prudence to master his rage and hatred towards poor Jacob.
"I don't know who he is; he must be drunk," he said, in a low tone to Mr. Palfrey. "But he's dangerous with that pitchfork. He'll never let it go." Then checking himself on the point of betraying too great an intimacy with Jacob's habits, he added "You watch him, while I run for the constable." And he hurried out of the shop.
"Why, where do you come from, my man?" said Mr. Palfrey, speaking to Jacob in a conciliatory tone. Jacob was eating his pie by large mouthfuls, and looking round at the other good things in the shop, while he embraced his pitchfork with his left arm, and laid his left hand on some Bath buns. He was in the rare position of a person who recovers a long absent friend and finds him richer than ever in the characteristics that won his heart.
"I's Zacob--b'other Zacob--'t home. I love Zavy--b'other Zavy," he said, as soon as Mr. Palfrey had drawn his attention. "Zavy come back from z' Indies--got mother's zinnies. Where's Zavy?" he added, looking round and then turning to the others with a questioning air, puzzled by David's disappearance.
"It's very odd," observed Mr. Palfrey to his wife and daughters.
"He seems to say Freely's his brother come back from th' Indies.""What a pleasant relation for us!" said Letitia, sarcastically. "Ithink he's a good deal like Mr. Freely. He's got just the same sort of nose, and his eyes are the same colour."Poor Penny was ready to cry.
But now Mr. Freely re-entered the shop without the constable.
During his walk of a few yards he had had time and calmness enough to widen his view of consequences, and he saw that to get Jacob taken to the workhouse or to the lock-up house as an offensive stranger might have awkward effects if his family took the trouble of inquiring after him. He must resign himself to more patient measures.
"On second thoughts," he said, beckoning to Mr. Palfrey and whispering to him while Jacob's back was turned, "he's a poor half-witted fellow. Perhaps his friends will come after him. I don't mind giving him something to eat, and letting him lie down for the night. He's got it into his head that he knows me--they do get these fancies, idiots do. He'll perhaps go away again in an hour or two, and make no more ado. I'm a kind-hearted man MYSELF--Ishouldn't like to have the poor fellow ill-used.""Why, he'll eat a sovereign's worth in no time," said Mr. Palfrey, thinking Mr. Freely a little too magnificent in his generosity.
"Eh, Zavy, come back?" exclaimed Jacob, giving his dear brother another hug, which crushed Mr. Freely's features inconveniently against the stale of the pitchfork.
"Aye, aye," said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in his mind, except the courage to commit it. He wished the Bath buns might by chance have arsenic in them.
"Mother's zinnies?" said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow lozenges that stood in the window. "Zive 'em me."David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob a handful. He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for more.
"They'll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate," thought David, and emptied the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with delight.
"You're very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely," said Letitia; and then spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, "Ithink you could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother.""I've always thought it a duty to be good to idiots," said Mr.
Freely, striving after the most moral view of the subject. "We might have been idiots ourselves--everybody might have been born idiots, instead of having their right senses.""I don't know where there'd ha' been victual for us all then,"observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light.
"But let us sit down again and finish our tea," said Mr. Freely.
"Let us leave the poor creature to himself."
They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.
"Well," said Miss Letitia, rising, "I don't know whether YOU mean to stay, mother; but I shall go home.""Oh, me too," said Penny, frightened to death at Jacob, who had begun to nod and grin at her.
"Well, I think we HAD better be going, Mr. Palfrey," said the mother, rising more slowly.
