He felt himself in a cold perspiration.  He could walk no more:  he must get into the cart and let Jacob get in with him.  Presently a cheering idea occurred to him:  after so large a breakfast, Jacob would be sure to go to sleep in the cart; you see at once that David meant to seize his bundle, jump out, and be free.  His expectation was partly fulfilled:  Jacob did go to sleep in the cart, but it was in a peculiar attitude—­it was with his arms tightly fastened round his dear brother’s body; and if ever David attempted to move, the grasp tightened with the force of an affectionate boa-constrictor.

“Th’ innicent’s fond on you,” observed the carrier, thinking that David was probably an amiable brother, and wishing to pay him a compliment.

David groaned.  The ways of thieving were not ways of pleasantness.  Oh, why had he an idiot brother?  Oh, why, in general, was the world so constituted that a man could not take his mother’s guineas comfortably?  David became grimly speculative.

Copious dinner at noon for Jacob; but little dinner, because little appetite, for David.  Instead of eating, he plied Jacob with beer; for through this liberality he descried a hope.  Jacob fell into a dead sleep, at last, without having his arms round David, who paid the reckoning, took his bundle, and walked off.  In another half-hour he was on the coach on his way to Liverpool, smiling the smile of the triumphant wicked.  He was rid of Jacob—­he was bound for the Indies, where a gullible princess awaited him.  He would never steal any more, but there would be no need; he would show himself so deserving, that people would make him presents freely.  He must give up the notion of his father’s legacy; but it was not likely he would ever want that trifle; and even if he did—­why, it was a compensation to think that in being for ever divided from his family he was divided from Jacob, more terrible than Gorgon or Demogorgon to David’s timid green eyes.  Thank heaven, he should never see Jacob any more!

CHAPTER II

It was nearly six years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the West Indies, that the vacant shop in the market-place at Grimworth was understood to have been let to the stranger with a sallow complexion and a buff cravat, whose first appearance had caused some excitement in the bar of the Woolpack, where he had called to wait for the coach.

Grimworth, to a discerning eye, was a good place to set up shopkeeping in.  There was no competition in it at present; the Church-people had their own grocer and draper; the Dissenters had theirs; and the two or three butchers found a ready market for their joints without strict reference to religious persuasion—­except that the rector’s wife had given a general order for the veal sweet-breads and the mutton kidneys, while Mr. Rodd, the Baptist minister, had requested that, so far as was compatible with the fair accommodation