The Wiltshire carters and horses have a language between them which falls darkly upon the ear of the unlearned therein; but the uncouth yell which the Cheap Jack addressed to his beast was not of that dialect. The sound he made on this occasion was not, Ga oot! Coom hedder! or, There right! but the horse understood it. It is probable that it never heard the Cheap Jack’s softer intonations, for its protuberant bones gave a quiver beneath the scarred skin as he yelled. Then its drooping ears pricked faintly, the quavering forelegs were braced, one desperate jog of the tottering load of oddities, and it set slowly and silently forward. The Cheap Jack did not follow his wares; he scrambled softly round the mill, like a deformed cat, looking about him on all sides. Then he made use of another sound,—a sharp, suggestive sound, whistled between two of his fingers. Then he looked round again. No one appeared. The wheels of the distant cart scraped slowly along the road, but this was the only sound the Cheap Jack heard. He whistled softly again. And as the cart took the sharp turn of the road, and was lost to sight, the miller’s man appeared, and the Cheap Jack greeted him in the softest tone he had yet employed. “Ah, there you are, my dear!” * * * * * Meanwhile, Mrs. Lake sat within, and looked ruefully at the damaged frame, and wished that the master, or at least the man, had happened to be at home. It is to be feared that our self-reproach for having done wrong is not always so certain, or so keen, as our self-reproach for having allowed ourselves to suffer wrong—in a bad bargain. Whether this particular picture was a bad bargain it is not easy to decide. It was scandalously dear for its condition, and for what it had cost the hunchback, but it was cheap for the pleasure it gave to the little Jan. CHAPTER XI. SCARECROWS AND MEN.—JAN REFUSES TO “MAKE GEARGE.”—UNCANNY.—“JAN’S OFF.”-THE MOON AND THE CLOUDS. THE picture gave Jan great pleasure, but it proved a stumbling-block on the road to learning. To “make letters” on his slate had been the utmost of his ambition, and as he made them he learned them. But after the Cheap Jack’s visit his constant cry was, “Jan make pitchers.” And when Abel tried to confine his attention to the alphabet, he would, after a most perfunctory repetition of a few letters that he knew, and hap-hazard blunders over fresh ones, fling his arms round Abel’s neck and say coaxingly, “Abel dear, make Janny _pitchers_ on his slate.” Abel’s pictures, at the best, were of that style of wall decoration dear to street boys.