Chapter 10 - Page 2

"Man-Gee-gee."

I suffered myself to be pulled out of the room--to see "Man-Gee-gee," to play "Man-Gee-gee," or to eat "Man-Gee-gee," it was impossible to tell which. I was pulled along the passage--I was pulled out to the front door. There--having approached the house inaudibly to us, over the grass--stood the horse, cart, and man, waiting to take the case of gold and silver plates back to London. I looked at Oscar, who had followed me. We now understood, not only the masterly compound word of Jicks (signifying man and horse, and passing over cart as unimportant), but the polite attention of Jicks in entering the house to inform us, after a rest and a drink, of a circumstance which had escaped our notice. The driver of the cart had, on his own acknowledgment, been investigated and questioned by this extraordinary child; strolling up to the door of Browndown to see what he was doing there. Jicks was a public character at Dimchurch. The driver knew all about her. She had been nicknamed "Gipsy" from her wandering habits, and had shortened the name in her own dialect, into "Jicks." There was no keeping her in at the rectory, try how you might: they had long since abandoned the effort in despair. Sooner or later, she turned up again--or somebody brought her back--or one of the sheep-dogs found her asleep under a bush, and gave the alarm. "What goes on in that child's head," said the driver, regarding Jicks with a sort of superstitious admiration, "the Lord only knows. She has a will of her own, and a way of her own. She is a child; and she aint a child. At three years of age, she's a riddle none of us can guess. And that's the long and the short of what I know about her."

While this explanation was in progress, the carpenter who had nailed up the case, and the carpenter's son, accompanying him, joined us in front of the house. They followed Oscar in, and came out again, bearing the heavy burden of precious metal--more than one man could conveniently lift--between them.

The case deposited in the cart, carpenter senior and carpenter junior got in after it, wanting "a lift" to Brighton.

Carpenter senior, a big burly man, made a joke. "It's a lonely country between this and Brighton, sir," he said to Oscar. Three of us will be none too many to see your precious packing-case safe into the railway station." Oscar took it seriously. "Are there any robbers in this neighborhood?" he asked. "Lord love you, sir!" said the driver, "robbers would starve in these parts; we have got nothing worth thieving here." Jicks--still watching the proceedings with an interest which allowed no detail to escape unnoticed--assumed the responsibility of starting the men on their journey. The odd child waved her chubby hand imperiously to her friend the driver, and cried in her loudest voice,