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--the avowed enemy of law and order, of justices
of the peace, head-boroughs, and gamekeepers,--such a man, in fact, as
was recently caught tripping, and deservedly dealt with by the Leeds
justices, for seducing a girl who had come to him to get back a
faithless lover, and has been convicted of bigamy since then. Sometimes,
however, they are of quite a different stamp--men who pretend to
nothing, and are with difficulty persuaded to exercise their occult arts
in the simplest cases.
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