This done, he trudged away, walking stoutly on over the three or four miles of common ground which lay between that hovel and the hut which had been lately inhabited by poor Rebecca Hayley. As he approached it, he was surprised to see the door and windows once more open; and he asked himself, not without some sort of apprehension, whether his assailants of the preceding night might not have migrated thither. He was relieved the moment after by seeing the apparition of the boy Jim at the door of the hut, and walking on confidently he said-- "Why, Jim, my man, I thought you were gone. I was here last night, and found a gentleman looking for you." "Ay, I ought to have been in London," said the boy; "but I found a whole heap of things belonging to poor Bessy, whom they took away from me; and I didn't know what to do with them, so I packed them all up, and took them over to Mr. White, the parson, who was always so kind to us both; but he was away, so I was obliged to bring them back again. I am sure I don't know what to do with them." "In London!" exclaimed the pedlar, seizing upon the only part of the boy's speech which surprised him: "what are you going to do in London, my lad? You'll never get on there." "Oh, yes, I shall," replied the boy. "I've got a place there, and am going to be made a footman of." "What! with the young gentleman I saw here last night, I suppose?" said the pedlar. "No, not with the young one--with the old one," replied Jim; and then, following the train of his own ideas, he went on: "she had hid them away so cunningly under her bed that nobody saw them when they were taking her away." "Saw what?" demanded the pedlar. "Why, all manner of things," answered the boy: "bits of silk and shawls, and old gloves, and a quantity of paper and music, and a brass scent-box." "Let me look at the scent-box," said the pedlar, "if you've got it here." "Oh, yes, I've got it," replied Jim, "for I did not like to leave them with Mr. White's housekeeper. I put that in my pocket, too, for fear it should fall out of the bundle: here it is." "Brass, you fool!" exclaimed the pedlar, examining a very large and richly-wrought vinaigrette. "Why, that is gold, and these are real stones, too, I do believe. Yes, they are, indeed," he continued, carrying the trinket to the door for better light. "That's worth more than a hundred guineas, or I'm no judge." "All the worse for me," answered Jim in a desponding tone; "for what I am to do with these things I do not know." "Why, the best thing you can do with them is to take them to the poor old woman herself," said the pedlar. "But I don't know where she is," rejoined the boy. "I think I'll take them up with me to London, and give them into the charge of my master; for he's a very kind gentleman, and perhaps may find out where poor Bessy is." "That's the best thing you can do," replied the pedlar; "but how are you to get them up?"