Of the strange gentleman who brought Jan to the windmill, the Lakes heard no more, but the money was paid regularly through a lawyer in London.
From this lawyer, indeed, Master Lake had heard immediately after the arrival of his foster-son.
The man of business wrote to say that the gentleman who had visited the mill on a certain night had, at that date, lost a pocket-book, which he thought might have been picked up at the mill. It contained papers only valuable to the owner, and also a five-pound note, which was liberally offered to the windmiller if he could find the book, and forward it at once.
Master Lake began to have a kind of reckless, gambling2 sort of feeling about luck. Here would be an easily earned five pounds, if he could but have the luck to find the missing property! That ten shillings a week had come pretty easily to him. When all is said, there are people into whose mouths the larks3 fall ready cooked!
The windmiller looked inside the mill and outside the mill, and wandered a long way along the chalky road with his eyes downwards4, but he was no nearer to the five-pound note for his pains. Then he went to his wife, but she had seen nothing of the pocket-book; on which her husband somewhat unreasonably5 observed that, “A might a been zartin thee couldn’t help un!”
He next betook himself to George, who was slowly, and it is to be hoped surely, sweeping6 out the round-house.
“Gearge, my boy,” said the windmiller, in not too anxious tones, “have ’ee seen a pocket-book lying about anywheres?”
George leaned upon his broom with one hand, and with the other scratched his white head.
“What be a pocket-book, then, Master Lake?” said he, grinning, as if at his own ignorance.
“Thee’s eerd of a pocket-book before now, thee vool, sure-ly!” said the impatient windmiller.
“I’se eerd of a pocket of hops7, Master Lake,” said George, after an irritating pause, during which he still smiled, and scratched his poll as if to stimulate8 recollection.
“Book—book—book! pocket-book!” shouted the miller1. “If thee can’t read, thee knows what a book is, thee gawney!”
“What a vool I be, to be sure!” said George, his simple countenance9 lighted up with a broader smile than before. “I knows a book, sartinly, Master Lake, I knows a book. There’s one,” George continued, speaking even slower than before,—“there’s one inzide, sir,—a big un. On the shelf it be. A Vamly Bible they calls un. And I’m sartin sure it be there,” he concluded, “for a hasn’t been moved since the last time you christened, Master Lake.”
The miller turned away, biting his lip hard, to repress a useless outburst of rage, and George, still smiling sweetly, spun10 the broom dexterously11 between his hands, as a man spins the water out of a stable mop. Just before Master Lake had got beyond earshot, George lowered the broom, and began to scratch his head once more. “I be a proper vool, sartinly,” said he; and when the miller heard this, he turned back. “Mother allus said I’d no more sense in my yead than a dumbledore,” George candidly12 confessed. And by a dumbledore he meant a humble-bee. “It do take me such a time to mind any thing, sir.”
“Well, never mind, Gearge,” said the miller; “if thee’s slow, thee’s sure. What do ’ee remember about the book, now, Gearge? A don’t mind giving thee five shilling, if thee finds un, Gearge.”
“A had un down at the burying, I ’member quite well now, sir. To put the little un’s name in ’twas. I thowt a hadn’t been down zince christening, I be so stoopid sartinly.”
“What are you talking about, ye vool?” roared the miller.
“The book, sir, sartinly,” said George, his honest face beaming with good-humor. “The Vamly Bible, Master Lake.”
And as the windmiller went off muttering something which the Family Bible would by no means have sanctioned, George returned chuckling13 to a leisurely14 use of his broom on the round-house floor.
Master Lake did not find the pocket-book, and after a day or two it was advertised in a local paper, and a reward of five pounds offered for it.
George Sannel was seated one evening in the “Heart of Oak” inn, sipping15 some excellent home-brewed ale, which had been warmed up for his consumption in a curious funnel-shaped pipkin, when his long lop-ears caught a remark made by the inn-keeper, who was reading out bits from the local paper to a small audience, unable to read it for themselves.
“Five pound reward!” he read. “Lor massy! There be a sum to be easily earned by a sharp-eyed chap with good luck on ’s side.”
“And how then, Master Chuter?” said George, pausing, with the steaming mug half-way to his lips.
“Haw, haw!” roared the inn-keeper: “you be a sharp-eyed chap, too! Do ’ee think ’twould suit thee, Gearge? Thee’s a sprack chap, sartinly, Gearge!”
“Haw, haw, haw!” roared the other members of the company, as they slowly realized Master Chuter’s irony16 at the expense of the “voolish” Gearge.
George took their rough banter17 in excellent part. He sipped18 his beer, and grinned like a cat at his own expense. But after the guffaws19 had subsided20, he said, “Thee’s not told un about that five pound yet, Master Chuter.”
The curiosity of the company was by this time aroused, and Master Chuter explained: “’Tis a gentleman by the name of Ford21 as is advertising22 for a pocket-book, a seems to have lost on the downs, near to Master Lake’s windmill. ’Tis thy way, too, Gearge, after all. Thee must get up yarly, Gearge. ’Tis the yarly bird catches the worm. And tell Master Lake from me, ’ll have all the young varments in the place a driving their pigs up to his mill, to look for the pocket-book, while they makes believe to be minding their pigs.”
“’Tis likely, too,” said George. And the two or three very aged23 laborers24 in smocks, and one other lubberly boy, who composed the rest of the circle, added, severally and collectively, “’Tis likely, too.”
But, as George beat his way home over the downs in the dusk, he said aloud, under cover of the roaring wind, and in all the security of the open country,—
“Vive pound! vive pound! And a offered me vive shilling for un. Master Lake, you be dog-ged cute; but Gearge bean’t quite such a vool as a looks.”
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1
miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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2
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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3
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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4
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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5
unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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6
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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7
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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8
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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9
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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10
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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11
dexterously
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| adv.巧妙地，敏捷地 | |
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12
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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13
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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14
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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15
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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17
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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18
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
guffaws
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| n.大笑，狂笑( guffaw的名词复数 )v.大笑，狂笑( guffaw的第三人称单数 ) | |
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20
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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21
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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23
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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24
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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25
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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