A Kind of Justice

 There are some people to whom badness clings like stink to that one pair of socks that won't stop smelling no matter how many times you wash them. These are the kinds of people that aren't the ringleaders of fault, but are just close enough to try and get whatever apples get dropped on the ground. That's, of course,  when they find out that the dropped apples were themselves stolen and if the ringleader gets arrested or doesn't, you can bet everything on red that the people rooting around on the ground will be. 

    The problem comes when that kind of person has been arrested, gets set free, goes back to rooting around the apples with the vague notion that they're probably still stolen, but, hey, maybe not.

   I know the type. More often than not, they still come out ahead in the same way that a politician has all that stuff that makes him a politician and still gets to keep his job. It's not justice, to my way of thinking.

    It was in this vein that I saw the stall at the market. The one with the guy who had watched as another man hurt those boys, and hurt them badly, not too long past. He had watched, and did nothing. Yet, there he was, selling is candles in the center of the market. A prime location, I can tell you. And on the chief summer market day. You don't just get a spot like that out of hand. It's an award from the squire. The squire knew that the man had stood by. There had been a penalty, though not for him. But the offending man was a friend of the squire's, God plague him. The squire doesn't like to see his friends get caught. And a friend of a friend... Nothing makes my blood boil more than the squire giving out privileges to those who ought to act better. Well, maybe there's one thing. Those who know they ought to have acted better and don't refuse the award. The man, if he had had any gumption knowing he had done a wrong by doing nothing, could have refused the squire. He could have let his place go to Nanny Gordon, with the bent hip who needed the extra for her ailing daughter. But, there was nothing I could do about it, save for not buying his wares. 

    I went about my business, mostly buying for the cottage. Some herbs can't grow in this soil, and if I'm lucky someone will have come from somewhere exotic and can add to my stash. Not everyone will talk to a witch, but pretty much anyone will take a witch's potion. At the market, none of this matters if you have the gold. Which made me all the sadder that the unfeeling fellow would profit.

    Except, I wasn't the only one not buying from him. As the morning went on, the buyers past him by. There were others that sold candles, even if they were more tallow than beeswax. By mid-morning the man wore a frown and had the grace to look abashed. By noon, the fellow was gone.

    I smiled. That, I thought, was a kind of justice. It restored a bit of faith in humanity, that. 

    It was enough to be going on with, anyway.

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