plain man,
Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try to
circumvent me, and I'm a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no animosity.
Your father pays--you apologize. That's enough for me! Let Tom Bakewell
fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law wasn't on the spot,
I suppose? so the Law ain't much witness. But I am. Leastwise the Bantam
is. I tell you, young gentleman, the Bantam saw't! It's no moral use
whatever your denyin' that ev'dence. And where's the good, sir, I
ask? What comes of 't? Whether it be you, or whether it be Tom
Bakewell--ain't all one? If I holds back, ain't it sim'lar? It's the
trewth I want! And here't comes," added the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered
in the Bantam, who presented a curious figure for that rare divinity to
enliven.

CHAPTER IX

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 w