CHAPTER XXIIA BAD DEBTTHEPig-driver climbed into his high cart like some obscure insect legging its way up the face of a wall. He did not take the reins himself, but let his boy continue driving, so that he might have more leisure to think over the iniquities of George. He was so angry that it cost him quite an effort not to turn the wheels of his chariot towards Abergavenny, and begin at once to make out his bill against him. As he was jolted along he began reckoning up the pounds, shillings and pence on his fingers; but his transactions with other people were so numerous and so odd that he could not make much way through their complications without his accounts, and was forced to wait until he got home in the evening, before he could disentangle Williams’ liabilities from the mass of notes among which they reposed.Bumpett’s accounts were like some human beings—only understood by their creator. They were perfectly safe under every prying eye which might light on them, and he could have left the keys of the box in which they were kept at the mercy of any one, and known that their perusal would leave the intruder no wiser than before. Not being a man of letters, and being barely able to read, he had invented certain signs which stood for words he had forgotten or never known how to write. Of figures he had only a small idea, for though he had learnt their character as far as the number five, his knowledge stopped there, and the actual accounts of his shop were kept by a less illiterate nephew, whose interests were bound upin his own, and whose open and burly appearance suggested the best aspects of the trade.The old man rushed to his box that evening as soon as he had entered his house, and began to search among the chaos it contained for the record of George’s debt. As the papers had not any sort of classification and were stuffed into the bottom, one on the top of another, to make room for all sorts of incongruous articles which shared their home, it took Bumpett some time to find what he wanted. He turned them over and over, smoothing out the creases with his dirty hand, and peering into the medley of hieroglyphics which had been difficult enough to write, and which were now trebly difficult to read. They were of all sorts, but represented chiefly what he considered to be bad or doubtful debts.“Owd 1 pownd bi Jamestench. he is in prisn. cums out Jooli. March ateen forty 3.”“Owd ileven shilns ninpens bi jane bull for last 5 munth. can’t get it. shes ded. ateen forty 4.”“Owd from Gorgewillems. Rent. 3 pownd thirteen and fore. August forty 2.”This last document also bore George’s sprawling signature, and at the bottom was added, “Made turms with im. James Bumpett.”The treasure was found, and the Pig-driver crammed the other papers back and shut down the lid. Then he took off his hat and put it on again, a habit he had when under emotion; he was very happy. He went below to a room at the back of the shop, and sat down with his nephew to a comfortable meal, for they lived well. When they had finished he took out the paper and, having raked a pair of rusty scissors from the back of a drawer, he cut off the lower part of the page and dropped it into the fire. It did not blaze but smouldered, the words “Made turms with im” standing out in an orange glow on their blackened background. He went to bed feeling ten years younger.He was in his best spirits as he drove out of Abergavenny nextmorning with the precious document in his hand, for the sight of it gave him such pleasure that he did not like to put it in his pocket, but held it clasped tightly until he came within sight of the grey roof of Great Masterhouse.He had never yet had any dealings with Mrs. Walters, but it was his intention to ask to see her; he had heard that she was a person of strict views, and he hoped to say a few words about George which he had no doubt would make her turn him out of the place. The virulent old man longed to see him begging from door to door. He meant to approach her in the interests of abstract virtue, and to warn her against employing a person whom he knew to be a thief and an evil-doer, one who would corrupt his fellow-servants, and in all probability go off some day of his own accord with as much of her portable property as he could carry. He felt sure that a pious woman such as she was would see the rightness of putting Williams to the door. Though he knew very well that, for reasons of his own, he could not prove his charges, he trusted that her severity would recognize the need of ridding her house of doubtful characters. It was in this hope that he drove into the back yard of the farm.Anne Walters was sitting in the kitchen with some knitting in her hand, superintending the work of a clumsy girl of fourteen who was washing a whole regiment of delf mugs. They were a sight to breed envy in a collector of modern days, with their patterns and devices of red roses, doggerel verses, and figures of John Barleycorn, Toby Philpott, and other jocund personalities, but she cared little for them, and kept them hidden away in a cupboard where no eye but that of the strolling spider could espy their quaint beauties. The money she had promised to lend Williams had been given him on the previous evening, and she had agreed to stop a portion of his weekly wages until the debt should expire. She was sure that she had done right in helping him, and it was a pleasant thought in her mind as Nannie’s face peered in at the kitchen door. Nannie always peered. Though she had been twenty years andmore at Great Masterhouse, she still kept the demeanour of an intruder, and her weather-beaten face came stealthily round the lintel as though its presence were an unlawful act.“The Pig-driver’s in the yard, ma’am, wanting to see you on business.”“The Pig-driver?”Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows.“Mr. Bumpett at Abergavenny. I hear him getting out of the cart.”The girl of fourteen stood open-mouthed; a visitor was a more amusing thing than cleaning china, and the water ran unheeded off her fingers on to the clean sand of the floor.“Go you out o’ this, girl,” cried Nannie, pouncing upon her and snatching up the basin, “don’t you be gaping there an’ the water slitherin’ down! Be off, an’ take some o’ they pots along wi’ you, if you don’t want a tiert slap on your long ears.”The girl fled with as many of the jugs as she could carry.Bumpett stood in the doorway trying to construct his expression into one which might find favour with the opposite sex.“Good-morning,” said Mrs. Walters in her cold voice, pointing to a chair.There was a slight movement of garments in the passage which showed that Nannie was listening outside. The Pig-driver sat down with his hat on his knees; he had not supposed it would be so difficult to start his subject, and he cleared his throat loudly by way of giving himself confidence. His experience had led him to believe his address irresistible, but he knew that people had to be “taken the right way.”“To be sure, this is a fine big place,” he began, glancing round the spacious kitchen, “a proud place. I’ll lay ye couldn’t have paid less nor the size o’ five pound ten for that dresser.”“I am not selling my furniture,” said Mrs. Walters, inclining to think that the business must be some intended purchase.“Oh, no, no. Name o’ goodness! I didn’t mean that,” rejoined he, laughing with reassuring waggery. “A fine figger of a lady like you to be sellin’ up! A pretty pass that would be.”“May I ask what your business is?” said Anne, drawing herself up. “I have a great deal to do this morning.”He brought his chair a little nearer.“I’ve heard a sight o’ beautiful words about you,” he said, throwing an admiring leer into his eye, “from this one an’ that. ’Tis common talk what a fine lady you be wi’ your silk an’ satins, an’ your holy doin’s in chapel. Ah, a sad thing it was for the respected Mr. Walters that’s gone before to be leavin’ ye alone. I’ll be bound he hasn’t found an angel to match ye in the glorious place where he now is.”It flashed across Mrs. Walters that the Pig-driver must be mad, and she rose from her chair.“Sit ye down again, do now,” he said. “I ax pardon if I be too feelin’ in my speech, but what can I do when I see such handsome looks an’ high ways before me? A man’s heart will feel for ye, seein’ ye so unprotected. ‘Beauty in distress,’ ma’am, as Holy Writ has it.” He chuckled at his own aptness of quotation.“I am not unprotected,” said Anne Walters, who was growing very angry, “and you will find it out if you will not come to business or leave the house.”“No offence meant. No doubt eddicated manners seem queer to ye in a plain man like me,” he said lightly, drawing the back of his hand across his nose.“Kindly say what your business is, or go.”Bumpett had fallen into the common masculine error of treating all women alike, and it began to strike him that he was on the wrong tack. His companion was no less sensible to flattery than the rest of her fellow-creatures, but flattery is a dish which should be dressed differently for every person. He took a less gallant attitude.“I’ve come to warn ye,” he said, dropping his voice.But she made no movement to regain her seat, for she was thoroughly angry, and she looked down at the eccentric figure of the Pig-driver with an expression of disgust. It was years since she had spoken to any one, except her son and the preacher she followed, who could pretend to an equal position with herself, and the impertinent familiarities of the old man were not to be endured. She debated whether she should send for a couple of her men and have him turned out of the place.“It’s my duty, plain an’ pure,” he continued, nothing daunted by her silence, “an’ I’ve come from Abergavenny to tell ye what may give ye a turn, an’ show ye what ye’ve got about the place. There’s a feller name o’ George Williams here, isn’t there? Well, he’s a limb an’ no mistake. A fine sort to be hangin’ about a respectable house, he is!”He paused for a reply, but Anne appeared entirely unmoved by his news and he began to get exasperated. He thumped his stick on the floor.“Ah, you women!” he cried, “ye’re a queer lot! Ye won’t believe a word a decent man says, an’ yet ye’ll believe any scoundrel that comes puggin’ his forelock to yer face an’ lying an’ thievin’ behind yer back. Well, ye’ve got a rare one now. Ye don’t know the life he’s been leadin’.”Mrs. Walters looked intently at him.“I do,” she said quietly, thinking of what George had admitted to her.The Pig-driver’s blatant demeanour collapsed like a pricked gas-bag; the shreds of it hung round him and that was all. If Williams had been fool enough to place his own safety in the hands of the woman confronting him, then he, Bumpett, was a lost man. In all his calculations he had never pictured any one who would, so to speak, thrust his own head into the prison door, and he made an effort to collect his wits and to find out how much she really knew.“What were he tellin’ ye about himself?” he asked, in a voice from which truculence had suddenly vanished.“That is my business and no one else’s,” replied Anne haughtily.He ground his teeth together.“If you have no more to say,” she continued, after a pause in which the sense of his own impotence nearly drove Bumpett mad, “you had better go.”A wave of rage surged over him. He got up red in the face.“I’ll have him in jail yet!” he cried, flourishing his arm, “I will! I tell ’ee he won’t bide here much longer. Look at that!”And he whipped the paper out of his pocket and slammed it down on the table. Anne watched him with disdain.“Look ’ee here! Look ’ee here! D’ye seethat?There’s his own name to it—three pound thirteen an’ four. Ah, but I’ve showed mercy on him, I have! An’ me waitin’ all this time for my money. D’ye see that date?”His thumb shook as he planted it on the grotesque writing.“Why should he go to jail if he pays you?”Bumpett’s wrath turned into a fine irony.“No, no, indeed,” he replied, mouthing his words and twisting himself round to look up in Mrs. Walters’ face; “he! he! true; true words, ma’am. Ah, I see ye have a wonderful knowledge o’ business.”“I will call Williams,” she said, “and tell him to pay you.”“Pay me, will he? Not him! He can’t,” shouted the old man in a kind of ecstasy, as he almost capered by the table.George came in from the yard at Mrs. Walters’ summons; he stopped, hesitating in the passage outside.“Come in, Williams,” she said, with so little trace of expression in her voice that he almost feared the Pig-driver had overruled her good feelings towards him. The old man looked the picture of excited and triumphant malice.“Mr. Bumpett has come to be paid,” she said, as he entered.“I have,” exclaimed Bumpett, “an’ high time I was, too. Now then, down wi’ your money, George Williams! A rich man like you shouldn’t hang back! Where is it, eh?”He grinned at George as a cat might grin at the mouse between his claws.The young man put his hands in his trousers pocket and, for answer, turned the whole amount out on the table; three gold pieces, thirteen silver ones and a fourpenny-bit.The Pig-driver’s countenance presented such a blank wall of astonishment that it was a pity no sufficiently disinterested spectator was present to study it. His errand to Great Masterhouse was proving so unlike anything he had expected that, for once in his life, he felt himself undone. The weapon with which he had hoped to defeat George had been wrested out of his grasp and turned against himself, and he had no other at hand with which to replace it. He glared at the pile of coin, wrath and cupidity fighting within him; the sight of the money made him long to touch it, to handle it and appropriate it, and, at the same time, he hated it because its unlooked-for appearance had robbed him of his revenge. He looked from George to Mrs. Walters and from them to the shining heap between them, and his grin fluctuated and finally died out altogether.Anne opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a sheet of paper which was lying in it, and a pen and ink.“Williams will want a receipt,” she remarked, placing them before the Pig-driver.“I can’t write,” he said, looking at the pen with an expression of malignity. “I’m no hand at it, I tell ’ee. I’ll need to take it along to Abergavenny to my nephew and get it made out.”“That does not matter,” said she composedly, taking up the quill. “You need only write your name. I know you can do that, for you have signed the paper you showed me.”She sat down and, in the same precise hand in which she annotated her Bible, wrote: “Received from George Williams in full payment of debt, three pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence.” Adding the date, she pushed it towards Bumpett.He would have liked to refuse, but he did not dare to doso; he could not risk disobliging a person who, for all he knew, was aware of the systematic law-breaking which was the source of his income.She watched his unwilling pen forming the signature quite unconscious of the hold she had over him.“Will you please to keep that for me?” said George as she held out the precious receipt.She turned to Bumpett, putting the paper into her pocket. She belonged to a sex whose natural impulse it is to hit a man when he is down.“Are you satisfied now?” she inquired, “or have you anything else to warn me about?”George and the Pig-driver left the kitchen together. Once outside the old man broke into a whirlwind of curses. Williams turned away.“Come back,” gasped Bumpett; “I know what ye’ve been doin’, ye lyin’ dog that ye are! Ye’ve been tellin’ that high-nosed, preachin’ devil yer sins, have ’ee? An’ you swearin’ on the Bible when I made terms with ’ee, an’ now maybe lettin’ loose the whole country on me. Well, ye’ll likely swing yesself, ye fool; that’s what ye’ll get fer yer pains—damn ye!”“I’ve never spoke a word about you. I said no more to Mrs. Walters than that I’d led a bad life—and so I have.”Bumpett stared.“An’ was that the meanin’ o’ what she said?”“I suppose so,” said Williams.The Pig-driver climbed into his cart as he had done the day before; he had never made such a bad business of anything.
THEPig-driver climbed into his high cart like some obscure insect legging its way up the face of a wall. He did not take the reins himself, but let his boy continue driving, so that he might have more leisure to think over the iniquities of George. He was so angry that it cost him quite an effort not to turn the wheels of his chariot towards Abergavenny, and begin at once to make out his bill against him. As he was jolted along he began reckoning up the pounds, shillings and pence on his fingers; but his transactions with other people were so numerous and so odd that he could not make much way through their complications without his accounts, and was forced to wait until he got home in the evening, before he could disentangle Williams’ liabilities from the mass of notes among which they reposed.
Bumpett’s accounts were like some human beings—only understood by their creator. They were perfectly safe under every prying eye which might light on them, and he could have left the keys of the box in which they were kept at the mercy of any one, and known that their perusal would leave the intruder no wiser than before. Not being a man of letters, and being barely able to read, he had invented certain signs which stood for words he had forgotten or never known how to write. Of figures he had only a small idea, for though he had learnt their character as far as the number five, his knowledge stopped there, and the actual accounts of his shop were kept by a less illiterate nephew, whose interests were bound upin his own, and whose open and burly appearance suggested the best aspects of the trade.
The old man rushed to his box that evening as soon as he had entered his house, and began to search among the chaos it contained for the record of George’s debt. As the papers had not any sort of classification and were stuffed into the bottom, one on the top of another, to make room for all sorts of incongruous articles which shared their home, it took Bumpett some time to find what he wanted. He turned them over and over, smoothing out the creases with his dirty hand, and peering into the medley of hieroglyphics which had been difficult enough to write, and which were now trebly difficult to read. They were of all sorts, but represented chiefly what he considered to be bad or doubtful debts.
“Owd 1 pownd bi Jamestench. he is in prisn. cums out Jooli. March ateen forty 3.”
“Owd ileven shilns ninpens bi jane bull for last 5 munth. can’t get it. shes ded. ateen forty 4.”
“Owd from Gorgewillems. Rent. 3 pownd thirteen and fore. August forty 2.”
This last document also bore George’s sprawling signature, and at the bottom was added, “Made turms with im. James Bumpett.”
The treasure was found, and the Pig-driver crammed the other papers back and shut down the lid. Then he took off his hat and put it on again, a habit he had when under emotion; he was very happy. He went below to a room at the back of the shop, and sat down with his nephew to a comfortable meal, for they lived well. When they had finished he took out the paper and, having raked a pair of rusty scissors from the back of a drawer, he cut off the lower part of the page and dropped it into the fire. It did not blaze but smouldered, the words “Made turms with im” standing out in an orange glow on their blackened background. He went to bed feeling ten years younger.
He was in his best spirits as he drove out of Abergavenny nextmorning with the precious document in his hand, for the sight of it gave him such pleasure that he did not like to put it in his pocket, but held it clasped tightly until he came within sight of the grey roof of Great Masterhouse.
He had never yet had any dealings with Mrs. Walters, but it was his intention to ask to see her; he had heard that she was a person of strict views, and he hoped to say a few words about George which he had no doubt would make her turn him out of the place. The virulent old man longed to see him begging from door to door. He meant to approach her in the interests of abstract virtue, and to warn her against employing a person whom he knew to be a thief and an evil-doer, one who would corrupt his fellow-servants, and in all probability go off some day of his own accord with as much of her portable property as he could carry. He felt sure that a pious woman such as she was would see the rightness of putting Williams to the door. Though he knew very well that, for reasons of his own, he could not prove his charges, he trusted that her severity would recognize the need of ridding her house of doubtful characters. It was in this hope that he drove into the back yard of the farm.
Anne Walters was sitting in the kitchen with some knitting in her hand, superintending the work of a clumsy girl of fourteen who was washing a whole regiment of delf mugs. They were a sight to breed envy in a collector of modern days, with their patterns and devices of red roses, doggerel verses, and figures of John Barleycorn, Toby Philpott, and other jocund personalities, but she cared little for them, and kept them hidden away in a cupboard where no eye but that of the strolling spider could espy their quaint beauties. The money she had promised to lend Williams had been given him on the previous evening, and she had agreed to stop a portion of his weekly wages until the debt should expire. She was sure that she had done right in helping him, and it was a pleasant thought in her mind as Nannie’s face peered in at the kitchen door. Nannie always peered. Though she had been twenty years andmore at Great Masterhouse, she still kept the demeanour of an intruder, and her weather-beaten face came stealthily round the lintel as though its presence were an unlawful act.
“The Pig-driver’s in the yard, ma’am, wanting to see you on business.”
“The Pig-driver?”
Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows.
“Mr. Bumpett at Abergavenny. I hear him getting out of the cart.”
The girl of fourteen stood open-mouthed; a visitor was a more amusing thing than cleaning china, and the water ran unheeded off her fingers on to the clean sand of the floor.
“Go you out o’ this, girl,” cried Nannie, pouncing upon her and snatching up the basin, “don’t you be gaping there an’ the water slitherin’ down! Be off, an’ take some o’ they pots along wi’ you, if you don’t want a tiert slap on your long ears.”
The girl fled with as many of the jugs as she could carry.
Bumpett stood in the doorway trying to construct his expression into one which might find favour with the opposite sex.
“Good-morning,” said Mrs. Walters in her cold voice, pointing to a chair.
There was a slight movement of garments in the passage which showed that Nannie was listening outside. The Pig-driver sat down with his hat on his knees; he had not supposed it would be so difficult to start his subject, and he cleared his throat loudly by way of giving himself confidence. His experience had led him to believe his address irresistible, but he knew that people had to be “taken the right way.”
“To be sure, this is a fine big place,” he began, glancing round the spacious kitchen, “a proud place. I’ll lay ye couldn’t have paid less nor the size o’ five pound ten for that dresser.”
“I am not selling my furniture,” said Mrs. Walters, inclining to think that the business must be some intended purchase.
“Oh, no, no. Name o’ goodness! I didn’t mean that,” rejoined he, laughing with reassuring waggery. “A fine figger of a lady like you to be sellin’ up! A pretty pass that would be.”
“May I ask what your business is?” said Anne, drawing herself up. “I have a great deal to do this morning.”
He brought his chair a little nearer.
“I’ve heard a sight o’ beautiful words about you,” he said, throwing an admiring leer into his eye, “from this one an’ that. ’Tis common talk what a fine lady you be wi’ your silk an’ satins, an’ your holy doin’s in chapel. Ah, a sad thing it was for the respected Mr. Walters that’s gone before to be leavin’ ye alone. I’ll be bound he hasn’t found an angel to match ye in the glorious place where he now is.”
It flashed across Mrs. Walters that the Pig-driver must be mad, and she rose from her chair.
“Sit ye down again, do now,” he said. “I ax pardon if I be too feelin’ in my speech, but what can I do when I see such handsome looks an’ high ways before me? A man’s heart will feel for ye, seein’ ye so unprotected. ‘Beauty in distress,’ ma’am, as Holy Writ has it.” He chuckled at his own aptness of quotation.
“I am not unprotected,” said Anne Walters, who was growing very angry, “and you will find it out if you will not come to business or leave the house.”
“No offence meant. No doubt eddicated manners seem queer to ye in a plain man like me,” he said lightly, drawing the back of his hand across his nose.
“Kindly say what your business is, or go.”
Bumpett had fallen into the common masculine error of treating all women alike, and it began to strike him that he was on the wrong tack. His companion was no less sensible to flattery than the rest of her fellow-creatures, but flattery is a dish which should be dressed differently for every person. He took a less gallant attitude.
“I’ve come to warn ye,” he said, dropping his voice.
But she made no movement to regain her seat, for she was thoroughly angry, and she looked down at the eccentric figure of the Pig-driver with an expression of disgust. It was years since she had spoken to any one, except her son and the preacher she followed, who could pretend to an equal position with herself, and the impertinent familiarities of the old man were not to be endured. She debated whether she should send for a couple of her men and have him turned out of the place.
“It’s my duty, plain an’ pure,” he continued, nothing daunted by her silence, “an’ I’ve come from Abergavenny to tell ye what may give ye a turn, an’ show ye what ye’ve got about the place. There’s a feller name o’ George Williams here, isn’t there? Well, he’s a limb an’ no mistake. A fine sort to be hangin’ about a respectable house, he is!”
He paused for a reply, but Anne appeared entirely unmoved by his news and he began to get exasperated. He thumped his stick on the floor.
“Ah, you women!” he cried, “ye’re a queer lot! Ye won’t believe a word a decent man says, an’ yet ye’ll believe any scoundrel that comes puggin’ his forelock to yer face an’ lying an’ thievin’ behind yer back. Well, ye’ve got a rare one now. Ye don’t know the life he’s been leadin’.”
Mrs. Walters looked intently at him.
“I do,” she said quietly, thinking of what George had admitted to her.
The Pig-driver’s blatant demeanour collapsed like a pricked gas-bag; the shreds of it hung round him and that was all. If Williams had been fool enough to place his own safety in the hands of the woman confronting him, then he, Bumpett, was a lost man. In all his calculations he had never pictured any one who would, so to speak, thrust his own head into the prison door, and he made an effort to collect his wits and to find out how much she really knew.
“What were he tellin’ ye about himself?” he asked, in a voice from which truculence had suddenly vanished.
“That is my business and no one else’s,” replied Anne haughtily.
He ground his teeth together.
“If you have no more to say,” she continued, after a pause in which the sense of his own impotence nearly drove Bumpett mad, “you had better go.”
A wave of rage surged over him. He got up red in the face.
“I’ll have him in jail yet!” he cried, flourishing his arm, “I will! I tell ’ee he won’t bide here much longer. Look at that!”
And he whipped the paper out of his pocket and slammed it down on the table. Anne watched him with disdain.
“Look ’ee here! Look ’ee here! D’ye seethat?There’s his own name to it—three pound thirteen an’ four. Ah, but I’ve showed mercy on him, I have! An’ me waitin’ all this time for my money. D’ye see that date?”
His thumb shook as he planted it on the grotesque writing.
“Why should he go to jail if he pays you?”
Bumpett’s wrath turned into a fine irony.
“No, no, indeed,” he replied, mouthing his words and twisting himself round to look up in Mrs. Walters’ face; “he! he! true; true words, ma’am. Ah, I see ye have a wonderful knowledge o’ business.”
“I will call Williams,” she said, “and tell him to pay you.”
“Pay me, will he? Not him! He can’t,” shouted the old man in a kind of ecstasy, as he almost capered by the table.
George came in from the yard at Mrs. Walters’ summons; he stopped, hesitating in the passage outside.
“Come in, Williams,” she said, with so little trace of expression in her voice that he almost feared the Pig-driver had overruled her good feelings towards him. The old man looked the picture of excited and triumphant malice.
“Mr. Bumpett has come to be paid,” she said, as he entered.
“I have,” exclaimed Bumpett, “an’ high time I was, too. Now then, down wi’ your money, George Williams! A rich man like you shouldn’t hang back! Where is it, eh?”
He grinned at George as a cat might grin at the mouse between his claws.
The young man put his hands in his trousers pocket and, for answer, turned the whole amount out on the table; three gold pieces, thirteen silver ones and a fourpenny-bit.
The Pig-driver’s countenance presented such a blank wall of astonishment that it was a pity no sufficiently disinterested spectator was present to study it. His errand to Great Masterhouse was proving so unlike anything he had expected that, for once in his life, he felt himself undone. The weapon with which he had hoped to defeat George had been wrested out of his grasp and turned against himself, and he had no other at hand with which to replace it. He glared at the pile of coin, wrath and cupidity fighting within him; the sight of the money made him long to touch it, to handle it and appropriate it, and, at the same time, he hated it because its unlooked-for appearance had robbed him of his revenge. He looked from George to Mrs. Walters and from them to the shining heap between them, and his grin fluctuated and finally died out altogether.
Anne opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a sheet of paper which was lying in it, and a pen and ink.
“Williams will want a receipt,” she remarked, placing them before the Pig-driver.
“I can’t write,” he said, looking at the pen with an expression of malignity. “I’m no hand at it, I tell ’ee. I’ll need to take it along to Abergavenny to my nephew and get it made out.”
“That does not matter,” said she composedly, taking up the quill. “You need only write your name. I know you can do that, for you have signed the paper you showed me.”
She sat down and, in the same precise hand in which she annotated her Bible, wrote: “Received from George Williams in full payment of debt, three pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence.” Adding the date, she pushed it towards Bumpett.
He would have liked to refuse, but he did not dare to doso; he could not risk disobliging a person who, for all he knew, was aware of the systematic law-breaking which was the source of his income.
She watched his unwilling pen forming the signature quite unconscious of the hold she had over him.
“Will you please to keep that for me?” said George as she held out the precious receipt.
She turned to Bumpett, putting the paper into her pocket. She belonged to a sex whose natural impulse it is to hit a man when he is down.
“Are you satisfied now?” she inquired, “or have you anything else to warn me about?”
George and the Pig-driver left the kitchen together. Once outside the old man broke into a whirlwind of curses. Williams turned away.
“Come back,” gasped Bumpett; “I know what ye’ve been doin’, ye lyin’ dog that ye are! Ye’ve been tellin’ that high-nosed, preachin’ devil yer sins, have ’ee? An’ you swearin’ on the Bible when I made terms with ’ee, an’ now maybe lettin’ loose the whole country on me. Well, ye’ll likely swing yesself, ye fool; that’s what ye’ll get fer yer pains—damn ye!”
“I’ve never spoke a word about you. I said no more to Mrs. Walters than that I’d led a bad life—and so I have.”
Bumpett stared.
“An’ was that the meanin’ o’ what she said?”
“I suppose so,” said Williams.
The Pig-driver climbed into his cart as he had done the day before; he had never made such a bad business of anything.