Cruelty was, as I have said, Mr. Crayshaw's ruling passion, but it was not his only vice. There was a whispered tradition that he had once been in jail for a misuse of his acquirements in the art of penmanship; and if you heard his name cropping up in the confidential conversation of such neighbours as small farmers, the postman, the parish overseer, and the like, it was sure to be linked with unpleasingly suggestive expressions, such as--"a dirty bit of business," "a nasty job that," "an awkward affair," "very near got into trouble," "a bit of bother about it, but Driver and Quills pulled him through; theirs isn't a nice business, and they're men of t' same feather as Crayshaw, so I reckon they're friends." Many such hints have I heard, for the 'White Lion' was next door to the sweet-shop, and in summer, refreshment of a sober kind, with conversation to match, was apt to be enjoyed on the benches outside. The good wives of the neighbourhood used no such euphuisms as their more prudent husbands, when they spoke of Crayshaw's. Indeed one of the whispered anecdotes of Snuffy's past was of a hushed-up story that was just saved from becoming a scandal, but in reference to which Mr. Crayshaw was even more narrowly saved from a crowd of women who had taken the too-tardy law into their own hands. I remember myself the retreat of an unpaid washer-woman from the back premises of Crayshaw's on one occasion, and the unmistakable terms in which she expressed her opinions.
"Don't tell me! I know Crayshaw's well enough; such folks is a curse to a country-side, but judgment overtakes 'em at last."
"Judgment," as the good woman worded it, kept threatening Mr. Crayshaw long before it overtook him, as it is apt to disturb scoundrels who keep a hypocritical good name above their hidden misdeeds. As it happened, at the very time Jem and I ran away from him, Mr. Crayshaw himself was living in terror of one or two revelations, and to be deserted by two of his most respectably connected boys was an ill-timed misfortune. The countenance my father had been so mistaken as to afford to his establishment was very important to him, for we were the only pupils from within fifty miles, and our parents' good word constituted an "unexceptionable reference."