Mr. Palfrey left the shop; he felt his own pride too severely wounded by the sense that he had let himself be fooled, to feel curiosity for further details.  The most pressing business was to go home and tell his daughter that Freely was a poor sneak, probably a rascal, and that her engagement was broken off.

Mr. Prettyman stayed, with some internal self-gratulation that he had never given in to Freely, and that Mr. Chaloner would see now what sort of fellow it was that he had put over the heads of older parishioners.  He considered it due from him (Mr. Prettyman) that, for the interests of the parish, he should know all that was to be known about this “interloper.”  Grimworth would have people coming from Botany Bay to settle in it, if things went on in this way.

It soon appeared that Jacob could not be made to quit his dear brother David except by force.  He understood, with a clearness equal to that of the most intelligent mind, that Jonathan would take him back to skimmed milk, apple-dumpling, broad beans, and pork.  And he had found a paradise in his brother’s shop.  It was a difficult matter to use force with Jacob, for he wore heavy nailed boots; and if his pitchfork had been mastered, he would have resorted without hesitation to kicks.  Nothing short of using guile to bind him hand and foot would have made all parties safe.

“Let him stay,” said David, with desperate resignation, frightened above all things at the idea of further disturbances in his shop, which would make his exposure all the more conspicuous. “You go away again, and to-morrow I can, perhaps, get him to go to Gilsbrook with me.  He’ll follow me fast enough, I daresay,” he added, with a half-groan.

“Very well,” said Jonathan, gruffly.  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t have some trouble and expense with him as well as the rest of us.  But mind you bring him back safe and soon, else mother’ll never rest.”

On this arrangement being concluded, Mr. Prettyman begged Mr. Jonathan Faux to go and take a snack with him, an invitation which was quite acceptable; and as honest Jonathan had nothing to be ashamed of, it is probable that he was very frank in his communications to the civil draper, who, pursuing the benefit of the parish, hastened to make all the information he could gather about Freely common parochial property.  You may imagine that the meeting of the Club at the Woolpack that evening was unusually lively.  Every member was anxious to prove that he had never liked Freely, as he called himself.  Faux was his name, was it?  Fox would have been more suitable.  The majority expressed a desire to see him hooted out of the town.