who could value a man wholly and solely
for what was in him--who thought themselves verily and indeed of the
same flesh and blood as John Jones the attorney's clerk, and Bill Smith
the costermonger, and could act as if they thought so.

CHAPTER III--SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.

Poor old Benjy! The "rheumatiz" has much to answer for all through
English country-sides, but it never played a scurvier trick than in
laying thee by the heels, when thou wast yet in a green old age. The
enemy, which had long been carrying on a sort of border warfare, and
trying his strength against Benjy's on the battlefield of his hands and
legs, now, mustering all his forces, began laying siege to the citadel,
and overrunning the whole country. Benjy was seized in the back and
loins; and though he made strong and brave fight, it was soon clear
enough that all which could be beaten of poor old Benjy would have to
give in before long.

It was as much as he could do now, with the help of his big stick and
frequent stops, to hobble down to the canal with Master Tom, and bait
his hook for him, and sit and watch his angling, telling him quaint old
country stories; and when Tom had no sport, and detecting a rat some
hundred yards or so off along the bank, would rush off with Toby the
turnspit terrier, his other faithful companion, in bootless pursuit, he
might have tumbled in and been drowned twenty times over before Benjy
could have got near him.

Cheery and unmindful of himself, as Benjy was, this loss of locomotive
power bothered him greatly. He had got a new object in his old age, and
was just beginning to think himself useful again in the world. He feared
much, too, lest Master Tom should fall back again into the hands of
Charity and the women. So he tried everything he could think of to get
set up. He even went an expedition to the dwelling of one of those queer
mortals, who--say what we will, and reason how we will--do cure simple
people of diseases of one kind or another without the aid of physic,
and so get to themselves the reputation of using charms, and inspire for
themselves and their dwellings great respect, not to say fear, amongst a
simple folk such as the dwellers in the Vale of White Horse. Where this
power, or whatever else it may be, descends upon the shoulders of a
man whose ways are not straight, he becomes a nuisance to the
neighbourhood--a receiver of stolen goods, giver of love-potions, and
deceiver of silly women--t