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‘I wouldn’t say such words, at least,’ said Nance.

‘You wouldn’t?’ said the old man grimly. ‘Well, and did I when I was your age? Wait till your back’s broke and your hands tremble, and your eyes fail, and you’re weary of the battle and ask no more but to lie down in your bed and give the ghost up like an honest man; and then let there up and come some insolent, ungodly fellow– ah! if I had him in these hands! “Where’s my money that you gambled?” I should say. “Where’s my money that you drank and diced?” “Thief!” is what I would say; “Thief!”‘ he roared, ‘”Thief”‘

‘Mr. Archer will hear you if you don’t take care,’ said Nance, ‘and I would be ashamed, for one, that he should hear a brave, old, honest, hard-working man like Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like a boy.’

‘D’ ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?’ he cried shrilly, with a clack of laughter; and then he came close up to her, stooped down with his two palms upon his knees, and looked her in the eyes, with a strange hard expression, something like a smile. ‘Do I mind for God, my girl?’ he said; ‘that’s what it’s come to be now, do I mind for God?’

‘Uncle Jonathan,’ she said, getting up and taking him by the arm; ‘you sit down again, where you were sitting. There, sit still; I’ll have no more of this; you’ll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of this good ale, and I’ll warm a tankard for you. La, we’ll pull through, you’ll see. I’m young, as you say, and it’s my turn to carry the bundle; and don’t you worry your bile, or we’ll have sickness, too, as well as sorrow.’

‘D’ ye think that I’d forgotten you?’ said Jonathan, with something like a groan; and thereupon his teeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the tankard in his hand and staring straight before him.

‘Why,’ says Nance, setting on the ale to mull, ‘men are always children, they say, however old; and if ever I heard a thing like this, to set to and make yourself sick, just when the money’s failing. Keep a good heart up; you haven’t kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh hand, to break down about a pound or two. Here’s this Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much. Well, now you see it was a clear Providence. Come, let’s think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely; smell of it; I’ll take a drop myself, it smells so sweet. And, Uncle Jonathan, you let me say one word. You’ve lost more than money before now; you lost my aunt, and bore it like a man. Bear this.’

His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot forth into the air, and trembled. ‘Let them look out!’ he shouted. ‘Here, I warn all men; I’ve done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them look out!’

‘Hush, hush! for pity’s sake,’ cried Nance.

And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands, and broke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible to hear. ‘O,’ he cried, ‘my God, if my son hadn’t left me, if my Dick was here!’ and the sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with distress. ‘O, if he were here to help his father!’ he went on again. ‘If I had a son like other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down; O, he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking taverns, a thief perhaps. My curse be on him!’ he added, rising again into wrath.

‘Hush!’ cried Nance, springing to her feet: ‘your boy, your dead wife’s boy–Aunt Susan’s baby that she loved–would you curse him? O, God forbid!’

The energy of her address surprised him from his mood. He looked upon her, tearless and confused. ‘Let me go to my bed,’ he said at last, and he rose, and, shaking as with ague, but quite silent, lighted his candle, and left the kitchen.