And foot it we did--right through Greenfield and Mossley and
Stalybridge and Ashton, and so to Manchester, where, sure enough, we had
no difficulty in finding the office of Mr. Roberts himself. To me, as I
walked the streets of that vast city, it seemed stark madness to think
that amid such a multitude as teemed on the wayside any human ingenuity
could discover those of whom we were in quest. But that wonderful Yellow
Breeches made light of the task.
"It'll be easy as falling off a tree," he said. "Garside, the Rev. James
Garside, an ordained minister of the Church of England, a graduate of
Oxford University. Why, man alive, I suppose I shall have nothing to do
but ask at the university and they'll tell us there who was the Rev.
James's father. And a Manchester merchant, and a rich one, and only dead
a matter of forty or fifty years. Pooh! it's as easy as sinning. But
what the young lady 'll do with her relations when she finds them, or
what they 'll do with her, beats me. A paltry four hundred pounds or so!
Who's going to bother about that? You see, if her relations are rich
they won't want her and her beggarly four hundred; if they're poor, I
take it she won't want them. However, that's your business. You say the
girl is staying with Mrs. Wrigley at Holly Grove? Very good. Five
guineas, please. You'll hear from me within a week or two. Good
morning."
I paid the five guineas, whilst Jim looked mighty glum, but opened not
his mouth till we regained the street.
"Five guineas! he exclaimed. 'Five gowden guineas. 'Bang went saxpence,'
th' Scotchman said when he'd his first tot o' whiskey i' Lunnon. An'
bang went yo'r gooid brass; an' all for what? Aw'm dalled if aw can tell
yo. He's getten howd, onny road, but aw nivver seed brass skip out o'
one chap's fob into another felly's as quick i' my life. It beats
conjurin' hollow. Eh! mon, we'n missed our vocation, as yo'r feyther 'd
ca' it. Here's yo an' me, ovver twelve foot o' guid bone an' flesh and
blood between us, 'll ha' to toil an' moil an' sweat for mony a weary
day to scrape that bras together, an' he just says, 'Five guineas; good
morning,' an' th' bonnie yaller gowd's gone for gooid an' aw. If ivver
aw'n a son aw'll breed him to be a 'torney. Aw thowt parsons an' doctors
'd a easy time on it, but lawyerin' for me, say I. Yo' do get a bottle
o' physic aat o' th' doctor, but yo'n nowt owt o' yon chap but 'Gooid
mornin'!' Well, well, th' longer aw live th' plainer aw see 'at warkin's
a fooil's job. Th' harder th' work, th' less th' pay. Show me a chap 'at
slaves his blood to watter an' aw'll show yo' one 'at 'll, ten to one,
dee i'th' warkhouse. Show me one 'at does nowt fro' morn to neet an'
aw'll show thee a man, as like as not, clothed i' purple an' fine
linen."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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