Cheap Jack Zita. Baring-Gould Sabine
to himself, 'that's Tom Bulk, as mischievous a young rogue as there is in the choir and grammar school. He is as sure of a caning this week as—as'—
'Thanky, sir,' said Cheap Jack, pocketing the half-crown. 'Zita, what next? Hand me that blazin' crimson plush weskit.'
From out the dark interior stepped the girl, and the sunshine flashed over her, lighting her auburn hair, rich as burnished copper. She wore a green, scarlet, and yellow flowered kerchief, tied across her bosom, and knotted behind her back. Bound round her waist was a white apron.
She deigned no glance at the throng, but kept her eyes fixed on her father's face.
'Are you better, dad?' she asked in a low tone.
'Not much, Zit. But I'll go through with it.'
'Here we are now!' shouted the Jack, after he had drawn the sleeve of his left arm across his brow and lips, that were bathed in perspiration. And yet the weather was cold; the season was the end of October, and the occasion of the visit of the van to Ely was Tawdry (St. Etheldreda's) Fair.
A whisper and nudges passed among the young men crowded about the van.
'Ain't she just a stunner?'
'I say, I wish the Cheap Jack would put up the girl to sale. Wouldn't there be bidding?'
'She's the finest thing about the caravan.'
Such were comments that flew from one to another.
'Now, then!' bellowed the vendor of cheap wares; 'here you are again! A red velvet weskit, with splendid gold—real gold—buttons. You shall judge; I'll put it on.'
The man suited the action to the word. Then he straightened his legs and arms, and turned himself about from side to side to exhibit the full beauty of the vestment from every quarter.
'Did you ever see the like of this?' he shouted. 'But them breeches o' mine have a sort o' deadening effect on the beauty of the weskit. Thirty shillings is the price. You should see it along with a black frock-coat and black trousers. Then it's glorious! It's something you can wear with just what you likes. No one looks at rags when you've this on, so took up is they with the weskit. What is that you said, sir? Twenty-five shillings was your offer? It is yours—and all because I sees it'll go with them great black whiskers of yours like duck and green peas. It'll have a sort of a mellering effect on their bushiness, and 'armonise with them as well as the orging goes wi' the chanting of the quiristers.'
Jack handed the waistcoat, which he had hastily plucked off his back, to one of the layclerks of the cathedral. The man turned as red as the waistcoat, and thrust his hands behind his back.
'I never bid for it,' he protested.
'Beg pardon, sir; I thought you nodded your 'ead to me, but it was the wind a-blowin' of it about. That gentleman with the black flowin' whiskers don't take the weskit; it is still for sale. I'll let you have it for fifteen shillings, and it'll make you a conquering hero among the females. You, sir? Here you are.'
He addressed the chief bailiff, Mr. Bowles, an elderly, white-whiskered, semi-clerical official, the pink and paragon of propriety.
'No!' exclaimed Cheap Jack, as Mr. Bowles, with uplifted palms and averted head, staggered back. 'No—his day is past. But I can see by the twinkle of his eye he was the devil among the gals twenty years ago. It's the young chaps who must compete for the weskit. I'll tell you something rare,' continued the man, after clearing his throat and mopping his brow and lips. 'No one will think but what you're a lord or a harchbishop when you 'ave this 'ere weskit on. As I was a-coming into Ely in this here concern, sez I to myself, "I'll put on an appearance out o' respect to this ancient and venerable city." So I drawed on this weskit; and what should 'appen but we meets his most solemn and sacred lordship, the Bishop of the diocese.'
'This is coming it rather strong,' said the person alluded to behind the curtain, and his face and head became hot and damp.
'Well, and when his lordship, the Right Reverend, saw me, he lifted up his holy eyes and looked at my weskit. And then sez he to himself, "Lawk-a-biddy, it's the Prince!" and down he went in the dirt afore me, grovellin' with his nose in the mire. He did, upon my word.'
'Upon my word, this is monstrous! this is insufferable! A joke is a joke!' gasped the Bishop, very much agitated. 'There's moderation in all things—a limitation to be observed even in exaggeration. I haven't been on the Wisbeach Road this fortnight. I never saw the man. I never went down in the dirt. This is positively appalling!'
He took a turn round the room, went to the bell, then considered that it would be inadvisable to summon the footman and show that he had been listening to the nonsense of a Cheap Jack. Accordingly he went back to the window, hid himself once more behind the curtain, but so trembled with excitement and distress, that the whole curtain trembled with him.
'Nine and six. Here you are. Nine and six for this splendid garment, and cheap it is—dirt cheap. You're a lucky man, sir; and won't you only cut out your rivals with the darling?'
Cheap Jack handed the plush waistcoat to a young farmer from the Fens; then suddenly he turned himself about, looked into his van, and said in a husky voice—
'Zit, I can't go yarning no longer. I've got to the end of my powers; you carry on.'
'Right, father; I'm the boy for you with the general public.'
The man stepped within. As he did so, the girl lowered one of the curtains so as to conceal him. He sank wearily on a bench at the side. She stooped with a quivering lip and filling eye and kissed him, then sprang forward and stood outside on the platform, contemplating the crowd with a look of assurance, mingled with contempt.
CHAPTER II
THE FLAILS
'NOW, here's a chance you may never have again—a chance, let me tell you, you never will have again.' She extended in both hands packages of tea done up in silvered paper. 'The general public gets cheated in tea—it does—tremenjous! It is given sloe leaves, all kinds of rubbish, and pays for it a fancy price. Father, he has gone and bought a plantation out in China, and has set over it a real mandarin with nine tails, and father guarantees that this tea is the very best of our plantation teas, and he sells it at a price which puts it within the reach of all. Look here!' she turned a parcel about; 'here you are, with the mandarin's own seal upon it, to let every one know it is genuine, and that it is the only genuine tea sent over.'
'Where's the plantation, eh, girl?' jeered a boy from the grammar school.
'Where is it?' answered the girl, turning sharply on her interlocutor. 'It's at Fumchoo. Do you know where Fumchoo is? You don't? and yet you sets up to be a scholar. It is fifteen miles from Pekin by the high road, and seven and a half over the fields. Go to school and look at your map, and tell your master he ought to be ashamed of himself not to ha' made you know your geography better. Now, then, here's your chance. Finest orange-flower Pekoe at four shillings. Beat that if you can.' No offers. 'I am not coming down in my price. Don't think that; not a farthing. Four shillings a pound; but I'll try to meet you in another way. I keep the tea in quarter-pound parcels as well. Perhaps that'll meet your views—and a beautiful pictur' of Fumchoo on the cover, with the Chinamen a-picking of the tea leaves. What! no bidder?'
There ensued a pause. Every one expected that the girl would lower the price. They were mistaken. She went back into the van and produced a roll of calico. Then ensued an outcry of many voices: 'Tea! give us some of your tea, please.' In ten minutes she had disposed of all she had.
'There, you see,' said Zita, 'our supply runs short. In Wisbeach the Mayor and Corporation bought it, and at Cambridge all the colleges had their supplies from us. That's why we're run out now. Stand back, gents.'
This call was one of caution to the eager purchasers and tempted lookers-on.
Tawdry Fair was for horses and bullocks, and a drove of the latter was being sent along from the market-place towards Stuntney. For a while the business of the sale was interrupted. One audacious bullock even bounded into the Galilee, another careered round the van; one ran as if for sanctuary to the Bishop's palace. Zita seized the occasion to slip inside the van. Her father was on the low