her to Brighton, to Bath, to the famed waters
of Harrogate; to an infallible curer of limb
affections, who scrubbed his patients with a
tooth-brush; to one who scraped his with an
oyster-knife; to another who rubbed his with
a horse-hair glove; and finally to one (in high
repute just then) who stuck his patients all
over with diachylon-plaster, and then oiled
them with linseed oil and beeswax. Finding
these hygeian excursions somewhat to
interfere with his business, (being indeed,
moreover, apprehensive of the blunders of his
apprentice,) Jerry summoned from the depths
of the north country a sister of his late wife
—also sheep-faced, but reduced to the most
dilapidated state of ewedom, yet attired in a
sort of scarecrow lamb fashion. To this
relative poor Julia was confided, once more to
resume her travels in search of health; and
astounding rumours were current at the bar
of the Black Lion, and at garden-gates among
the housemaids, who slipped out to purchase
a "mossle of ribbing," about nine of the clock
at night, of Mr. Nutts's unheard of liberality;
of how he had said to his sister-in-law
"Bring her back well, Judy, and I'll make a
lady of you;" likewise, and at repeated
intervals, the much meaning words, "Spare no
expense."

Julia Nutts came back in about nine months
or a year, not quite strong and well, but
without the ghastly irons. Whether for this
comparative cure the sheep-faced aunt was
made a lady or not, I am unable to state;
but it is certain that she was seen in our
neighbourhood no more. Julia never relapsed
into her helpless state again  but she was
always delicate, languid, and ailing. She was
well enough, however, two years afterwards,
to be married, as you shall briefly hear.

I have said that Nutts had an apprentice.
He was a varlet some seventeen years of age;
the greatest lout, the most incorrigible
sluggard and idler, and the most indomitable
thickhead you can conceive. His name
was Martin Duff. He had a bullet-head, a
snub-nose, beefy pendulous cheeks, pig's eyes,
a widemouthed waddling frog's mouth, and
two great red ears, which were continually
galled and chafed by a pair of gigantic and
preternaturally stiffened shirt-collars which
he persisted in wearing. His stupidity and
dulness were beyond human capacity to calculate
or comprehend. He was not ignorant, he
was ignorance itself—ignorance so crass that
you might almost fancy sowing seed and
growing mustard and cress in it. He inked
his fingers and smeared his apron. He wore
his shoes down at heel, and could not part his
hair straight. His amusements were puerile,
consisting in cutting out paper figures, or
playing with boys ridiculously smaller than
himself. He could remember the names of
no articles, no prices, no customers. He was
a fool, sir!

Between this youth, Jerry, and every cane,
"ope, and offensive missile in the house there
had been for years a union and understanding
of the most intimate nature. But Jerry was
at last obliged to give in. Of all the multifarious
modes of correction he had tried, the
experience he had gained only amounted to
this: that the back part of a scrubbing-brush
rapped violently on the boy's occiput
would extract an answer when he was most
obstinate; and that a pegtop dug violently
into his elbow or shins would cause him to
utter an ejaculation of pain. Beyond this the
seed he had sown produced no fruit. The lad
went on as usual for a couple of years more;
droning, dawdling, scrawling inane figures
on the slate, mixing sugar-candy with
gum-Benjamin, and sassafrass with floss-silk, till it
became noised about one Saturday night that
young Duff at Nutts's was growing a pair of
whiskers. With the whiskers, which were
of a scrubby, irregular kind, came apparently
Martin Duff's intellect, or his wise teeth. His
genius flowered late, but flowered at last. He
took to wearing tail-coats, and shirt-collars
larger than ever, and was perpetually studying
a big book with a calfskin cover—by some
averred to be Walkingame's Tutor's Assistant;
by others, Maunder's Treasury of Knowledge.
Be it as it may, Martin Duff grew bright to
the extent of weighing, tying up, and charging
correctly for half a pound of tea—a thing he
had been totally incapable of doing before;
and so rapid was the progress of his genius,
and consequent advance in the estimation of
society and of his master, that none of us were
very surprised to hear that the long apprentice
was about to be married to Julia Nutts.

Let me see. They were married just
before I went to school for the first time;
but I remember it as though it were
yesterday. The ceremony took place in a
little church, across three fields and a style,
in the churchyard of which I have heard
that Jack Sheppard, the great robber, was
buried. Miss Nutts looked very pale and
pretty, in slate-coloured silk; and Martin
Duff was magnificently hideous in blue and
brass buttons, and grey kerseymeres, and
what not. Jerry Nutts for the first and last
time in his life was seen in a hat (he usually
wore a canvass cap with a battered peak),
and from his continually frictionising his eyes
with the sleeve of his coat on the road to and
from church, it was conjectured that he was
much affected. But the bride and bridegroom
went off to some watering-place for the
honeymoon; and I went to school, and from
thence into the cruel world, and forgot,
almost, that they or their village had being.

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