The Captain laid a plate and a knife and fork before him. “Help yourself! Is he fond of Ben?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” temporized Chirk. “He’s a hard sort of a cove, if you take me, but he done his duty by the boy, so far as he was able.” He picked up the carving knife, but lowered it again, looking in a puzzled way at his host. “I don’t know where Ned is, nor what lay he’s on, and another thing I don’t know is what your lay is! And nor I don’t know what the likes of you are doing in this ken, because from the way you talk you’re a nib-cove!”
“Oh, I’m here by accident!” replied John, pouring the beer into two mugs. “I came to the pike on Friday night, and found Ben alone, and scared out of his wits, so as I had had enough of the weather, and he was afraid to be alone, I racked up for the night—thinking that his father would very likely return before morning. But he didn’t, so here I am still.”
“So here you are still!” agreed Chirk, looking at him very hard. “I suppose you’re minding the gate, what’s more!”
“That’s it.”
“Well, if it is, you must be dicked in the nob!” said Chirk frankly.
John grinned at him. “No, I’m quite sane. I’ve several reasons for remaining here. Besides, I don’t know what the devil to do about the boy. He’s scared of being sent to work in Sheffield, if his father don’t return, and I’ve promised he shan’t be thrown on the Parish.”
“Scared of that, is he?” Chirk gave a short laugh. “Ay, he might well be! That’s the way I started, when my old dad tipped off. By the time my mother had buried him decent we were properly dished-up. A couple of hordes—what you call shillings, Mr. Nib-Cove!—a groat, and three grigs was all she had left in the stocking. So I went to work in a factory. Not here: up north, it was. Just about Ben’s age, I must ha’ been. Three years I stayed, and I ain’t forgotten, though I’m turned forty now, nor I never will, not if I reach fourscore! I loped off when my mother went to roost.”
“Was that when you took to the bridle-lay?” John asked.
“A peevy cove, ain’t you?” Chirk said. “What d’ye want to do? Cry rope on me? Who told you I was on the bridle lay?”
“Who told you I was a green ’un?” retorted John.
Chirk smiled reluctantly, and applied himself to the beef. “Danged if I know what you are!” he said. “But I wasn’t a rank-rider all them years ago. Lordy, when you get to be that you’re top-o’-the-trees! I started on the dub-lay, and worked my way up.”
“Is it worth it?” John asked curiously.
Mr. Chirk smiled a little wryly. “It’s all according to the way you look at it,” he replied. “You might be lucky, and end up with the dibs in tune, but I ain’t met many as did. It’s a free life, and if you’ve a taste for excitement there’ll be plenty o’ that. The chances are you’ll go up the ladder to bed—at York Gaol, with a Black-coat saying prayers, and the nubbing-cheat ready to top you. It’s well enough when you’re young, but when you get to my time o’ life, and maybe have a fancy to settle down—well, that’s where the rub comes, and no remedy! If I could lay my hands on a bit o’ balsam—and I don’t mean a truss with six or seven goblins in it, and a couple o’ diamond rings which turn out to be Bristol stone!—no, some real mint-sauce: a monkey, in some old gager’s strong-box, or even a couple o’ plums: why, I don’t know but what I wouldn’t turn to pound dealing! A tidy little farm, maybe. But I’m not a lucky cove: never have been!”
John got up to refill the ale-jug. “What’s Bream’s lay?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
John laughed. “A stupid question, Mr. Chirk! You wouldn’t tell me, if you did. But I want to find the man.”
“Hark ’ee!” said Chirk. “If you was thinking, because I stable the mare here now and then, and maybe have a bite o’ supper with Ned, he’s a fence, or a baggage-man, you’re going beside the cushion! He ain’t—not to my knowledge! This ain’t my beat, and I don’t come here in the way o’ business. What brings me here is another matter: private, you may say! If you’re willing I should leave the mare for an hour, well! If you ain’t—well again! I’ll brush!”
“Oh, quite willing!” John said. “I’m even willing to believe you don’t know what may have befallen Brean, or where to get news of him—if you tell me so, man to man.”
Chirk looked at him with narrowed, searching eyes. “What’s in your mind?” he asked abruptly.
“Who is the man who visits Brean secretly, after dark? The man Ben is afraid of?”
Chirk pushed his chair back from the table. “What’s this? Trying to gammon me, gov’nor? You’ll catch cold at that!”
“No, it’s the sober truth. That’s what had Ben in such a sweat of fear, the night I came to this place. Some stranger he’s never seen, nor been allowed to see. Brean pitched him a Canterbury tale to keep him from spying on the pair of them: told him if this mysterious visitor saw him he’d send him to work in the pits. If a tree so much as rustled out there—” he jerked his head towards the back-door—“the boy turned green with fear.”
“Sounds to me like a bag o’ moonshine!” said Chirk incredulously. “Why, he went off, happy as a grig, to put Mollie through her tricks! He’s not scared!”
“Oh, not now! I told him no one could harm him while I was here, and he believed me.”
A gleam of humour lit Chirk’s eyes, as they ran over his host. “I should think he might,” he agreed. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Wonder why the bantling never said a word to me about it? Him and me’s good friends, and he tells me most things. Ned’s a hard man, like I said, and he’s not one to take notice of brats, even when they’re of his own get. A monkey’s allowance is what he gives Ben: more kicks than ha’pence!”
“How long is it since you were here last?” John asked.
“Matter of three weeks.”
“I’ve a shrewd suspicion it’s happened since then. A pity! I had hoped you might know something. I’ve a notion there’s something devilish queer afoot here, but what it is, or how Brean came to be mixed up in it—if he is—I can’t guess. I shouldn’t think it could be what you call pound dealing, however: this visitor of his seems to be uncommonly anxious he shan’t be seen, or recognized.”
Chirk dived a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a snuff-box. It was a handsome piece, as its present owner acknowledged, as he offered it, open, to John. “Took it off of a fat old gager a couple o’ years back,” he explained, with engaging frankness. “Prigged his tatler, too, but I sold that. I’m a great one for a pinch o’ merry-go-up, and this little box just happened to take my fancy, and I’ve kept it. I daresay I’d get a double finnup for it, too,” he added, sighing over his own prodigality. “It’s worth more, but when it comes to tipping over the dibs there ain’t a lock as isn’t a hog-grubber. Now, look ’ee here, Mr. Nib-Cove——”
“I wish you will stop calling me that!” interrupted John. “If it means, as I suspect it may, that you take me for some town-tulip, you’re out! I’m a soldier!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Chirk, helping himself to a generous pinch of his snuff. “No offence, Soldier! Now, maybe I could drop in at one or two kens which I knows of, and where I might get news o’ Ned Brean; but he never spoke a word to me about this cull which comes to see him secret. I’m bound to say it sounds to me like a Banbury story, but you ain’t no halfling, nor you don’t look like one o’ them young bloods kicking up a lark, and I don’t misdoubt you. I don’t twig what any boman prig should be doing in a backward place like this, but I’ll tell you that there’s ways a gatekeeper might be useful to such—if you greased him well in the fist! If so be as you was wishful to take a train o’ pack-ponies through the pike, and no questions asked nor toll paid, for instance!”
“Yes, I’d thought of that,” John agreed. “I’ve seen it done, but not here. Dash it, man, this is Derbyshire!”
“Just what I was thinking myself,” nodded Chirk. “In the free-trading business, Soldier?”
John laughed. “No, only for a week or two! I was picked up at sea once by a free-trading vessel, and made the voyage in her. A famous set of rascals they were, too, but they treated me well enough.”