saying, "No, they wants to get rid of un, or they wouldn't have
brought un here."

Happily for poor little Jan, the unscrupulous rustic rejected the
next idea which came to him as too doubtful of success.

"I wonder if they'd come down something handsome to them as could
tell 'em the young varmint was off their hands for good and all.
'Twould save un ten shilling a week. Ten shilling a week! I heard
un with my own ears. I'd a kep' un for five, if they'd asked me. I
wonders now. Little uns like that does get stole by gipsies
sometimes. Varmer Smith's son were, and never heard on again. They
falls into a mill-race too sometimes. They be so venturesome. But
I doubt 'twouldn't do. Them as it belongs to might be glad enough
to get rid of un, and save their credit and their money too by
turning upon I after all."

The miller's man puzzled himself in vain. He could think of no mode
of action at once safe and certain of success. He did not even know
whether what he possessed had any value, or how or where to make use
of it. But a sort of dim hope of seeing his way yet kept him about
the mill, and he persevered in the effort to learn to read, and kept
his big ears open for any thing that might drop from the miller or
his wife to throw light on the history of Jan, with whom his hopes
were bound up.

Meanwhile, with a dogged patience, he bided his time.