FullReads

‘O fie!’ said Nance.

The old man thrust out his jaw at her, with the grimace of an irreverent schoolboy. Upon that aged face it seemed a blasphemy. Then he took out of his bosom a long leather purse, and emptying its contents on the settle, began to count and recount the pieces, ringing and examining each, and suddenly he leapt like a young man. ‘What!’ he screamed. ‘Bad? O Lord! I’m robbed again!’ And falling on his knees before the settle he began to pour forth the most dreadful curses on the head of his deceiver. His eyes were shut, for to him this vile solemnity was prayer. He held up the bad half-crown in his right hand, as though he were displaying it to Heaven, and what increased the horror of the scene, the curses he invoked were those whose efficacy he had tasted–old age and poverty, rheumatism and an ungrateful son. Nance listened appalled; then she sprang forward and dragged down his arm and laid her hand upon his mouth.

‘Whist!’ she cried. ‘Whist ye, for God’s sake! O my man, whist ye! If Heaven were to hear; if poor Aunt Susan were to hear! Think, she may be listening.’ And with the histrionism of strong emotion she pointed to a corner of the kitchen.

His eyes followed her finger. He looked there for a little, thinking, blinking; then he got stiffly to his feet and resumed his place upon the settle, the bad piece still in his hand. So he sat for some time, looking upon the half-crown, and now wondering to himself on the injustice and partiality of the law, now computing again and again the nature of his loss. So he was still sitting when Mr. Archer entered the kitchen. At this a light came into his face, and after some seconds of rumination he dispatched Nance upon an errand.

‘Mr. Archer,’ said he, as soon as they were alone together, ‘would you give me a guinea-piece for silver?’

‘Why, sir, I believe I can,’ said Mr. Archer.

And the exchange was just effected when Nance re-entered the apartment. The blood shot into her face.

‘What’s to do here?’ she asked rudely.

‘Nothing, my dearie,’ said old Jonathan, with a touch of whine.

‘What’s to do?’ she said again.

‘Your uncle was but changing me a piece of gold,’ returned Mr. Archer.

‘Let me see what he hath given you, Mr. Archer,’ replied the girl. ‘I had a bad piece, and I fear it is mixed up among the good.’

‘Well, well,’ replied Mr. Archer, smiling, ‘I must take the merchant’s risk of it. The money is now mixed.’

‘I know my piece,’ quoth Nance. ‘Come, let me see your silver, Mr. Archer. If I have to get it by a theft I’ll see that money,’ she cried.

‘Nay, child, if you put as much passion to be honest as the world to steal, I must give way, though I betray myself,’ said Mr. Archer. ‘There it is as I received it.’

Nance quickly found the bad half-crown.

‘Give him another,’ she said, looking Jonathan in the face; and when that had been done, she walked over to the chimney and flung the guilty piece into the reddest of the fire. Its base constituents began immediately to run; even as she watched it the disc crumbled, and the lineaments of the King became confused. Jonathan, who had followed close behind, beheld these changes from over her shoulder, and his face darkened sorely.

‘Now,’ said she, ‘come back to table, and to-day it is I that shall say grace, as I used to do in the old times, day about with Dick’; and covering her eyes with one hand, ‘O Lord,’ said she with deep emotion, ‘make us thankful; and, O Lord, deliver us from evil! For the love of the poor souls that watch for us in heaven, O deliver us from evil.’

CHAPTER VII. THE BLEACHING-GREEN

The year moved on to March; and March, though it blew bitter keen from the North Sea, yet blinked kindly between whiles on the river dell. The mire dried up in the closest covert; life ran in the bare branches, and the air of the afternoon would be suddenly sweet with the fragrance of new grass.