Mr. Freely did not venture over his door-sill that day, for he knew Jacob would keep at his side, and there was every probability that they would have a train of juvenile followers.  He sent to engage the Woolpack gig for an early hour the next morning; but this order was not kept religiously a secret by the landlord.  Mr. Freely was informed that he could not have the gig till seven; and the Grimworth people were early risers.  Perhaps they were more alert than usual on this particular morning; for when Jacob, with a bag of sweets in his hand, was induced to mount the gig with his brother David, the inhabitants of the market-place were looking out of their doors and windows, and at the turning of the street there was even a muster of apprentices and schoolboys, who shouted as they passed in what Jacob took to be a very merry and friendly way, nodding and grinning in return.  “Huzzay, David Faux! how’s your uncle?” was their morning’s greeting.  Like other pointed things, it was not altogether impromptu.

Even this public derision was not so crushing to David as the horrible thought that though he might succeed now in getting Jacob home again there would never be any security against his coming back, like a wasp to the honey-pot.  As long as David lived at Grimworth, Jacob’s return would be hanging over him.  But could he go on living at Grimworth—­an object of ridicule, discarded by the Palfreys, after having revelled in the consciousness that he was an envied and prosperous confectioner?  David liked to be envied; he minded less about being loved.

His doubts on this point were soon settled.  The mind of Grimworth became obstinately set against him and his viands, and the new school being finished, the eating-room was closed.  If there had been no other reason, sympathy with the Palfreys, that respectable family who had lived in the parish time out of mind, would have determined all well-to-do people to decline Freely’s goods.  Besides, he had absconded with his mother’s guineas:  who knew what else he had done, in Jamaica or elsewhere, before he came to Grimworth, worming himself into families under false pretences?  Females shuddered.  Dreadful suspicions gathered round him:  his green eyes, his bow-legs had a criminal aspect.  The rector disliked the sight of a man who had imposed upon him; and all boys who could not afford to purchase, hooted “David Faux” as they passed his shop.  Certainly no man now would pay anything for the “goodwill” of Mr. Freely’s business, and he would be obliged to quit it without a peculium so desirable towards defraying the expense of moving.

In a few months the shop in the market-place was again to let, and Mr. David Faux, alias Mr. Edward Freely, had gone—­nobody at Grimworth knew whither.  In this way the demoralization of Grimworth women was checked.  Young Mrs. Steene renewed her efforts to make light mince-pies, and having at last made a batch so excellent that Mr. Steene looked at her with complacency as he ate them, and said they were the best he had ever eaten in his life, she thought less of bulbuls and renegades ever after.  The secrets of the finer cookery were revived in the breasts of matronly house-wives, and daughters were again anxious to be initiated in them.