The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📖

drinks liquid fire with gusto—playfully spittin’ forth the same, together with flame and sulphurous smoke, and all for sixpence [young man].” (Bang!) “O my stars! step up [young man] and all for a tanner.” (Bang!)

Presently, his eye being off me for the moment, I edged my way out of the throng and so came to where a man stood mounted upon a cart. Beside him was a fellow in a clown’s habit who blew loudly three times upon a trumpet, which done, the man took off his hat and began to harangue the crowd, something in this wise:

“I come before you, ladies and gentlemen, not for vulgar gain—or, as I might say—kudos, which is Eyetalian for the same—not to put my hands into your pockets and rifle ‘em of your honestly earned money; no, I come before you for the good of each one of you, for the easing of suffering mankind—as I might say—the ha-melioration of stricken humanity. In a word, I am here to introduce to you what I call my Elixir Anthropos—Anthropos, ladies and gentlemen, is an old and very ancient Egyptian word meaning man—or woman, for that matter,” etc.

During this exordium I had noticed a venerable man in a fine blue surtout and a wide-brimmed hat, who sat upon the shaft of a cart and puffed slowly at a great pipe. And as he puffed, he listened intently to the quack-salver’s address, and from time to time his eyes would twinkle and his lips curve in an ironic smile. The cart, upon the shaft of which he sat, stood close to a very small, dirty, and disreputable-looking tent, towards which the old gentleman’s back was turned. Now, as I watched, I saw the point of a knife gleam through the dirty canvas, which, vanishing, gave place to a hand protruded through the slit thus made—a very large hand with bony knuckles, and long fingers, upon one of which was a battered ring. For an instant the hand hovered undecidedly, then darted forward—the long skirts of the old gentleman’s coat hardly stirred, yet, even as I watched, I saw the hand vanish with a fat purse in its clutches.

Skirting the tent, I came round to the opening, and stooping, peered cautiously inside. There, sure enough, was my pickpocket gazing intently into the open purse, and chuckling as he gazed. Then he slipped it into his pocket, and out he came—where I immediately pinned him by the neckerchief.

And, after a while, finding he could not again break my hold, he lay still, beneath me, panting, and, as he lay, his one eye glared more balefully and his other leered more waggishly than ever, as I, thrusting my hand into his pocket, took thence the purse, and transferred it to my own.

“Halves, mate!” he panted, “halves, and we’ll cry ‘quits.’”

“By no means,” said I, rising to my feet, but keeping my grip upon him.

“Then what’s your game?”

“I intend to hand you over as a pickpocket.”

“That means ‘Transportation’!” said he, wiping the blood from his face, for the struggle, though short, had been sharp enough.

“Well?” said I.

“It’ll go ‘ard with the babby.”

“Baby!” I exclaimed.

“Ah!—or the hinfant, if you like it better—one as I found in a shawl, a-laying on the steps o’ my van one night, sleeping like a alderman—and it were snowing too.”

“Yet you are a thief!”

“We calls it ‘faking.’”

“And ought to be given up to the authorities.”

“And who’s to look arter the babby?”

“Are you married?”

“No,”

“Where is the baby?”

“In my van.”

“And where is that?”

“Yonder!” and he pointed to a gayly-painted caravan that stood near by. “‘e’s asleep now, but if you’d like to take a peep at ‘im—”

“I should,” said I. Whereupon the fellow led me to his van, and, following him up the steps, I entered a place which, though confined, was wonderfully neat and clean, with curtains at the open windows, a rug upon the floor, and an ornamental; brass lamp pendent from the roof. At the far end was a bed, or rather, berth, curtained with chintz, and upon this bed, his chubby face pillowed upon a dimpled fist, lay a very small man indeed. And, looking up from him to the very large, bony man, bending over him, I surprised a look upon the hardened face—a tenderness that seemed very much out of place.

“Nice and fat, ain’t ‘e?” said the man, touching the baby’s applelike cheek with a grimy finger.

“Yes.”

“Ah—and so ‘e should be, James! But ‘you should see ‘im eat, a alderman’s nothing to Lewis—I calls ‘im Lewis, for ‘twere at Lewisham I found ‘im, on a Christmas Eve—snowing it was, but, by James! it didn’t bother ‘im—not a bit.”

“And why did you keep him?—there was the parish.”

“Parish!” repeated the man bitterly. “I were brought up by the parish myself—and a nice job they made o’ me!”

“Don’t you find him a great trouble?”

“Trouble!” exclaimed the man. “Lewis ain’t no trouble—not a bit—never was, and he’s great company when I’m on the move from one town to another larning to talk a’ready.”

“Now,” said I, when we had descended from the van, “I propose to return this purse to the owner, if he is to be found; if not, I shall hand it to the proper authorities.”

“Walker!” exclaimed the man.

“You shall yourself witness the restitution,” said I, unheeding his remark, “after which—”

“Well!” said he, glancing back toward his caravan, and moistening his lips as I tightened my grip upon his arm, “what about me?”

“You can go—for Lewis’s sake—if you will give me your word to live honestly henceforth.”

“You have it, sir—I swear it—on the Bible if you like.”

“Then let us seek the owner of this purse.” So, coming in a while to where the quack doctor was still holding forth—there, yet seated upon the shaft of the cart, puffing at his great pipe, was the venerable man. At sight of him the pickpocket stopped and caught my arm.

“Come, master,” said he, “come, you never mean to give up all that good money—there’s fifty guineas, and more, in that purse!”

“All the more reason to return it,” said I.

“No, don’t—don’t go a-wasting good money like that—it’s like throwing it away!” But shaking off the fellow’s importunate hand, I approached, and saluted the venerable man.

“Sir,” said I, “you have had your pocket picked.”

He turned and regarded me with a pair of deep-set, very bright eyes, and blew a whiff of smoke slowly into the air.

“Sir,” he replied, “I found that out five minutes ago.”

“The fact seems to trouble you very little,” said I.

“There, sir, being young, and judging exteriorly, you are wrong. There is recounted somewhere in the classics an altogether incredible story of a Spartan youth and a fox: the boy, with the animal hid beneath his cloak, preserved an unruffled demeanor despite the animal’s tearing teeth, until he fell down and died. In the same way, young sir, no man can lose fifty-odd guineas from his pocket and remain unaffected by the loss.”

“Then, sir,” said I, “I am happy to be able to return your purse to you.” He took it, opened it, glanced over its contents, looked at me, took out two guineas, looked at me again, put the money back, closed the purse, and, dropping it into his pocket, bowed his acknowledgment. Having done which, he made room for me to sit beside him.

“Sir,” said he, chuckling, “hark to that lovely rascal in the cart, yonder—hark to him; Galen was an ass and Hippocrates a dunce beside this fellow—hark to him.”

“There’s nothing like pills!” the Quack-salver was saying at the top of his voice; “place one upon the tip o’ the tongue—in this fashion—take a drink o’ water, beer, or wine, as the case may be, give a couple o’ swallers, and there you are. Oh, there’s nothing in the world like pills, and there’s nothing like my Elixir Anthropos for coughs, colds, and the rheumatics, for sore throats, sore eyes, sore backs—good for the croup, measles, and chicken-pox—a certain cure for dropsy, scurvy, and the king’s evil; there’s no disease or ailment, discovered or invented, as my pills won’t soothe, heal, ha-meliorate, and charm away, and all I charge is one shilling a box. Hand ‘em round, Jonas.” Whereupon the fellow in the clown’s dress, stepping down from the cart, began handing out the boxes of pills and taking in the shillings as fast as he conveniently could.

“A thriving trade!” said my venerable companion; “it always has been, and always will, for Humanity is a many-headed fool, and loves to be ‘bamboozled.’ These honest folk are probably paying for bread pellets compounded with a little soap, yet will go home, swallow them in all good faith, and think themselves a great deal better for them.”

“And therefore,” said I, “probably derive as much benefit from them as from any drug yet discovered.”

“Young man,” said my companion, giving me a sharp glance, “what do you mean?”

“Plainly, sir, that a man who believes himself cured of a disease is surely on the high road to recovery.”

“But a belief in the efficacy of that rascal’s bread pellets cannot make them anything but bread pellets.”

“No,” said I, “but it may effect great things with the disease.”

“Young man, don’t tell me that you are a believer in Faith Healing, and such-like tomfoolery; disease is a great and terrible reality, and must be met and overcome by a real means.”

“On the contrary, sir, may it not be rather the outcome of a preconceived idea—of a belief that has been held universally for many ages and generations of men? I do not deny disease—who could? but suffering and disease have been looked upon from the earliest days as punishments wrought out upon a man for his sins. Now, may not the haunting fear of this retributive justice be greatly responsible for suffering and disease of all kinds, since the mind unquestionably reacts upon the body?”

“Probably, sir, probably, but since disease is with us, how would you propose to remedy it?”

“By disbelieving in it; by regarding it as something abnormal and utterly foreign to the divine order of things.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed my venerable companion. “Bah!—quite, quite impracticable!”

“They say the same of ‘The Sermon on the Mount,’ sir,” I retorted.

“Can a man, wasting away in a decline, discredit the fact that he is dying with every breath he draws?”

“Had you, or I, or any man, the Christ-power to teach him a disbelief in his sickness, then would he be hale and well. The Great Physician healed all diseases thus, without the aid of drugs, seeking only to implant in the mind of each sufferer the knowledge that he was whole and sound—that is to say, a total disbelief in his malady. How many times do we read the words: ‘Thy faith hath made thee whole’? All He demanded of them was faith—or, as I say, a disbelief in their disease.”

“Then the cures of Christ were not miracles?”

“No more so than any great and noble work is a miracle.”

“And do you,” inquired my companion, removing his pipe from his lips, and staring at me very hard, “do you believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God?”

“Yes,” said I, “in the