In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing ranks, expected him to play.  Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked elephantine.  It sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was faithful—­if uncorrupted.  The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise:  the farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good.  This Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on—­a sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money must be to a wise man.  When the stealing of grain had been made known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him the shadow of the guilt.  Farmer Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to which he would discard; and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom secreting pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his appearance at Sessions.

The Bantam’s small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the right moment, it seemed.  He was certainly the first to give the clue at Belthorpe on the night of the conflagration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did.  Lobourne had its say on the subject.  Rustic Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and, moreover, told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said.  However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.

“Now,” said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, “tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!”

The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, fully obscuring him from Richard.

Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric commenced his narrative.  Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution:  but when the recital arrived at the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen “T’m Baak’ll wi’s owen hoies,” Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, and winks.