the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree, where she could see far away toward the Floss. There was Tom; but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great river, and that he had another companion besides Yap, — naughty Bob Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the birds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was wicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was because Bob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer round house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered thither, there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking; and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed above the barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she was scolding them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought it very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and bats in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a little snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats; and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mind about Maggie, and would never let her go with him.
It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the wasps' nests, and could set all sort of traps; he could climb the trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting hedgehogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather naughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones after the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering incognito.
Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.
Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little world into just what she should like it to be.
Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took her opium.
Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom he had met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a neighboring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spoke of the sport with an enthusiasm which no one who is not either divested of all manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching, can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural wickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; there was even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-curled border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at the knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably 'virtue in rags,' which, on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).
'I know the chap as owns the ferrets,' said Bob, in a hoarse treble voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. 'He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!' Bob continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, 'he's no more good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at the rot-catchin' i' your feyther's barn.'
Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in and shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for a dog who made so poor a figure.
'No, no,' he said, 'Yap's no good at sport. I'll have regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I've done school.'
'Hev ferrets, Measter Tom,' said Bob, eagerly, — 'them white ferrets wi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an' you might put a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em fight, you might. That's what I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be better fun a'most nor seein' two chaps fight, — if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at the Fair, as the things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakes was smashed — But they tasted just as good,' added Bob, by way of note or addendum, after a moment's pause.
'But, I say, Bob,' said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, 'ferrets are nasty biting things, — they'll bite a fellow without being set on.'
'Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' your ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un, he won't.'
At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant consequences.
'Hoigh! Yap, — hoigh! there he is,' said Tom, clapping his hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank. 'Seize him, lad! seize him!'
Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.
'Ugh! you coward!' said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor- spirited an animal. Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow edge of the overflowing river by way of change.
'He's none so full now, the Floss isn't,' said Bob, as he kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it. 'Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water, they was.'
'Ay, but,' said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between statements that were really accordant, — 'but there was a big flood once, when the Round Pool was made. I know there was, 'cause father says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all over the fields ever such a way.'
'I don't care about a flood comin',' said Bob; 'I don't mind the water, no more nor the land. I'd swim, I would.'
'Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?' said Tom, his imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread. 'When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of it, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in it, — rabbits and things, — all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I shouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming,' he added, in the tone of a benevolent patron.
'I aren't frighted,' said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so appalling. 'But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when you wanted to eat 'em.'
'Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-and-tails,' said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age. 'I'd divide fair to begin with, and then we'd see who'd win.'
'I've got a halfpenny o' my own,' said Bob, proudly, coming out of the water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. 'Yeads or tails?'
'Tails,' said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.
'It's yeads,' said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it fell.
'It wasn't,' said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. 'You give me the halfpenny; I've won it fair.'
'I sha'n't,' said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.
'Then I'll make you; see if I don't,' said Tom.
'Yes, I can.'
'You can't make me do nothing, you can't,' said Bob.
'No, you can't.'
'I'm master.'
'I don't care for you.'
'But I'll make you care, you cheat,' said Tom, collaring Bob and shaking him.
'You get out wi' you,' said Bob, giving Tom a kick.
Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery.
'You, say you'll give me the halfpenny now,' he said, with difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob's arms.
