Memory, as we old folk know, be the plaything of time, and when trouble
comes and we wilt and reckon life's ended, the years roll unresting on,
and the storm passes, and the dark breaks to grey again, and, may be, even
the sun's self peeps forth once more. For our little wits ain't built to
hold grief for ever, else the world would be a lunatic asylum and not the
tolerable sane and patient place we mostly find it.
It was like that with my friend, Jonas Bird. When his wife died, and left
him and three young childer, his light went out, and though no more than
thirty-five years of age, he felt 'twas the end of the world. He comforted
his cruel sufferings with the thought of a wonnerful tombstone to Sarah
Bird, and there's no doubt that tombstones, though they can't make or mar
the dead, have, time and again, softened the lot of the living. And you
may say that poor Sarah's mark in the churchyard was the subject that
first began to calm Jonas. But it did a lot more than that.
He was a sandy-headed man with old-fashioned whiskers, a long face like a
horse, blue eyes and a wondering expression. In fact, life did astonish
him a good bit, and being a simple soul, most things that happened were
apt to puzzle him. A carpenter by trade, he did very well in that walk of
life and had saved money. But he had long lived for one thing only, and
that was Sarah, and when she dropped sudden and left him with two little
boys and a girl babe, he was more puzzled than ever and went in a proper
miz-maze of perplexity that such things could be.
Everybody liked Jonas, for he was a kindly and well-intending creature,
and his wife had been such another, and a good few women rushed to the
rescue when the blow fell. And his master, a childless man and very fond
of Bird, offered to adopt one of his boys and take the lad off his hands.
But Jonas clung to all three, because, as he truly said, they each had a
good bit of their mother in 'em and he couldn't spare a pinch of Sarah.
And his wife's first and dearest woman friend it was who came to the
rescue at this season and stopped along with Jonas, for the children's
sake and the dead woman's.
Milly Bassett, she was called, and she ministered to the orphaned children
and talked sense to the widow man; and though an old maid here and there
didn't think it a seemly thing for Milly to take up her life under Bird's
roof, the understanding and intelligent sort thought no evil. For of such
a creature as Milly Bassett no evil could be thought.
She was the finest-minded woman ever came out of Thorpe-Michael in my
opinion, and she only had one idol and that was duty, and when Sarah, on
her death-bed, prayed Milly to watch over Jonas and the family till the
poor man recovered from his sorrows and wed again, then Milly promised to
do so. And her promises were sacred in her eyes. And if any was mean
enough to think ill of her for so doing, she'd have said such folk didn't
know her and their opinions were no matter.
A flaxen woman--grey-eyed and generous built--was Milly. She lived with an
old mother who was a laundress, and the old mother took it very ill when
her daughter went to mind the dead woman's little ones; but, as Milly
herself said, there was only one man who needed to be considered before
she went to her holy task, and that was William White.
You see, Miss Bassett had long been tokened to William, and if he'd
objected, it must have put her in a very awkward position with the promise
to a dead woman pulling one way and her duty to a live lover pulling the
other. But it happened that William White was a very good friend to Jonas,
like everybody else, and he didn't see no good reason why for his
sweetheart shouldn't lend a hand at such a sorrowful time.
Moreover, there was a bit of money in it, and Milly's William happened to
be a man whose opinions and principles had never been known to stand
between him and a shilling. So when Jonas insisted on paying Milly Bassett
ten bob a week over and above her keep--all clear profit--William raised
no objection whatever. He weren't a jealous man--quite the contrary--and
his engagement to marry Milly weren't an affair of yesterday. In fact, at
this time, they'd been contracted a good two years, and though the man
felt quite willing to wed when ever Milly was minded to, she'd got her
ideas and she'd made it clear from the very start that not until her
intended could show her four pound a week would she take the step.
And William White, though a good horseman and a champion with the plough
and well thought upon by Farmer Northway, could not yet rise to that
figure, though he went in hope that it might happen. He'd tried round
about on the farms to better his wages, for he was amazing fond of money,
but up to the present nobody seemed to think William was worth more than
three pound ten, or three pound with a cottage.
So Milly waited. She loved William in a temperate sort of way, though
there was points in his character she didn't much hold with; but she'd
given her word to wed him in fullness of time, and she was the sort never
to part from her word for no man. They kept company calm and contented,
with no emotions much to either side, though now-and-a-gain William would
venture to say he thought she might bate her terms and take him for ten
shillings less. But this she weren't prepared to do; and so it stood when
Mrs. Bird died and Milly, who had worshipped the dead woman, came to take
her place till time had worked on Jonas and he was able to look round for
another. For that his Sarah had always wished he should do, well knowing
the poor man couldn't carry on without a spouse.
Jonas was terrible obliged to Milly for coming, and to William for letting
her do so, and he was the soul of goodness in the whole matter and made
William free of his house and saved him the price of many a meal. In fact
William rather exceeded reason in that matter and dropped in at
supper-time too often for decency; but it was his sweetheart and not Jonas
who opened his eyes to his manners and told him there was reason in all
things.
They weren't none too mad in love, as Jonas found out in course of time.
In fact Milly was temperate in all things and had never known to lose her
nerve or temper; while as for William White, he'd got her promise and knew
she was the faithful-unto-death sort and would wait till he could raise
what she considered the proper income for a married woman to begin upon.
The widower soon found out the fashion of sense that belonged to Milly
for, while still in his great grief, he began to talk of spending fifty
pounds of capital on Sarah's grave, and she heard him and advised against.
"As to that," she said, "I knew your dear wife better'n anybody on earth
but yourself, Jonas, and this I will say: if she thought you'd heaved up
fifty pounds' worth of marble stone on her, she wouldn't lie quiet for an
instant moment. You know that modesty was Sarah's passion, and she'd
rather have a pink daisy on her pit and a blackbird pulling a worm out of
the green grass than all the monuments in the stone-cutter's window."
He listened and she ran on:
"Her virtues be in our hearts, and it won't better it to print 'em in the
churchyard; and if I was you and wanted to make heaven a brighter place
for Sarah than it already is, I'd lift up a modest affair and put a bit of
money away to goody for your little ones."
"I dare say that's a very clever thought," admitted Jonas.
"Yes, it is, then," went on Milly. "She didn't help you to be a saver for
vain things like grave-stones that don't bring in no interest to nobody.
And if it was the measurement of your sorrow, I'd say nothing, but 'tis
well known remorse be at the foundation of half the fine monuments widow
men put up to their partners, and you don't need to tell nobody in
Thorpe-Michael what you thought of Sarah and how she was the light of your
house, for we well know it."
"I won't do nothing skimpy, however," said Jonas.
"I'm sure you won't," she answered, "but in the matter of monuments 'tis a
very good rule to wait till the grave be ready to carry 'em; and by that
time the bereaved party have generally settled down to take a sensible
view of the situation."
He nodded, and from that evening he began to see what a fine headpiece
Milly had got to her. In fact she was a very entertaining woman and as
time went on and his childer grew to love her, Jonas was a lot puzzled at
the thoughts that began to move in his brain. He turned to work, which is
a very present help in trouble, and he did overtime and laboured something
tremendous at his bench. In fact, if he'd belonged to a Trades Union,
Jonas would have heard of it to his discredit, for there's nothing the
unions dread more than a man who loves work and does all he knows for the
pride of it plus the extra money. But Jonas was on his own and independent
to all but his conscience--and his master didn't see no sin in paying him
what he was worth.
He'd always been a saver, and his wife had helped him in that respect, but
now his money was no more than dust in the corners of his mind, for there
weren't no eye to brighten when he told of a bit more put by and no tongue
to applaud and tell him what a model sort of man he was. He found,
however, as he came to know Milly Bassett better, that though his good
fortune and prosperity was nothing to her, yet she could praise him for
it. So, little by little, he gave her a peep into his affairs and found
she was one of them rare people who can feel quite a bit of honest
interest in their neighbour's good luck, with no after-clap of sourness,
because their own ain't so bright.
'Twas natural the woman should contrast her horseman with Jonas and wish
he'd got the same orderly sort of mind; but she had the wit to see that it
takes all sorts to make a world, and while William liked money a lot
better than earning it, Jonas liked the earning and didn't set no lustful
store on the stuff itself.
Still money's a power, and there's no doubt 'twas the hidden power of his
purse which presently tempted the carpenter to a most unheard of piece of
work. Never a man less likely to do anything out of the common you might
have thought, yet life worked on him and time and chance prompted until
that everyday sort of chap was finally lifted up to an amazing deed.
Round about a year after his wife died, the thought came to him and
gradually growed till it mastered him and led to a wonderful stroke. And
it showed, if that wanted showing, that you never know what gifts be hid
in anybody, or what the simplest man will rise to in the way of craft,
given the soil to ripe his wits and the prompting to lift him up.
Jonas found himself more and more interested in the love affair of William
and Milly, and having studied the situation in all its bearings and
measured the characters of the man and woman and taken the subject also to
the Throne of Grace, for he was a prayerful creature, he finally
considered that it now lay in his power to make the first move, since that
had to come from him. And the second move would have to be made by William
White; and it all depended upon William whether there remained an opening
left for Jonas, or whether the affair was closed. For he was a most
honourable chap in all things and never one to best a neighbour even if
opportunity offered.
Some men, for example, might have tried to tempt Milly Bassett away from
William and hold out the attractions to be got with such a husband as
Jonas; but no such thought ever darkened the carpenter's mind. He'd
certainly got to a pitch when he dearly wanted Milly, for with his soul at
rest and memory growing fainter, she seemed to reflect all the beauties of
his late partner, along with several of her own; but Jonas well knew that
she was tokened to William and would never leave him for another, but wait
till time cured all. To tempt Milly was out of the question; yet he
couldn't see no particular reason why he shouldn't tempt William, or at
any rate inquire into William's attitude on the subject. And knowing the
horseman exceeding well by now and perceiving that, strictly speaking,
William couldn't be considered in the least worthy of such a wife as
Milly, Jonas went his way and done his dashing deed.
On a day in early spring White was ploughing and Jonas Bird, who'd gone to
Four Ways Farm to measure up for a new pigs' house, took care to come home
along past the field where White was at work. And he knew that at noon
William's horses would have their nose-bags and the ploughman would be
sitting in the hedge eating his dinner. And there he was, in a famous lew
hedge facing the sun, where the childer find the first white violets of
the year.
So Jonas pitched beside the man and said they was well met.
"I've been wanting to meet you all alone this longful time," said Jonas;
"and I'm very wishful to ask you a question, Bill. You mustn't think me
impertinent nor nothing like that. You and me be very good friends and
long may we remain so; but I've took careful note of your character, and
you know me just so well, so you'll understand, please, I be asking in a
very gentlemanly spirit and not for no vulgar curiosity nor nothing like
that."
"My!" said William, "what a lot of talk, Jo! Spit it out. I'll answer any
question you like to ask if I can so do."
"'Tis just this, then, and you go on with your meal," answered Jonas.
"What's the thing you set highest in all the world?"
"Money," said William, and Jonas nodded.
"So I thought," he replied, "and if it had been any other thing, I'd have
left it at that; but as I've got your own word, I may take it that money
comes first."
"First and last and always," answered William. "And hell knows I don't get
my share."
"Money comes first and Milly Bassett second--that would be a fair way to
put it?" asked Jonas.
Well, White thought a minute before he replied. "When you say 'Milly,'" he
began, "you touch a delicate subject, and I ain't none too sure if I
didn't ought to tell you to shut your mouth. But still, I don't deny but
that's about the size of it. Me and Milly have been tokened very near
three years, and perfect love, Jo, on them terms may cast out fear and a
lot else, but it don't get you no forwarder--quite the contrary. Love
don't keep for ever, more than a leg of mutton will, and sometimes it
comes across me it may go a bit stale, if not actually bad. I fear nought
myself, of course, because Milly's a woman of her word and knows no
changing; but that cuts both ways and, while she's so firm as a rock about
my wages and in a manner of speaking puts money before love, then I
sometimes wonder who could blame me for doing the same. We'm very good
friends, and she'll be a damned fine wife, no doubt--when I get her; but,
meantime, things run a little on the cool side and I can't pretend I feel
so furious set in that quarter as I did three year agone. She ain't the
only pebble on the beach, to say it kindly, though a most amazing wonder
and well worth waiting for in reason. But there's others--not a few very
comely creatures as would reckon me along with three ten a week quite good
enough. I can't hide that from myself."
Well, this was meat and drink to Jonas, but he hid his heart for the
present, though his great excitement made his voice run up till it broke
and he had to begin again--a thing that happened to him sometimes.
"That being so," he said, "that being so, Bill, how would you feel if
anybody was to say: 'Here's good money for changing your future career, if
you ain't too addicted to Milly Bassett to take it?'"
"Money for her?" asked William.
"Money enough to turn your affections into another quarter and let her go
free."
"God's truth, Jo! You've gone and loved her!" shouted William.
"No," answered the carpenter. "By this hand I have not, Bill. I'm not one
to love any created woman as be tokened to another man and well you know
it. To do so would be a wicked thing. But this I may tell you open and
honest: if Milly were a free woman, then I should love her instanter."
"Dammy, Jo! You want to buy her!" said William.
But Jonas shook his head.
"I reverence the woman far, far too much to want any such thing," he said.
"You can't buy and sell females in a Christian land; but this I'll say, if
you can honestly feel that a good dollop of money would recompense you for
losing Milly, things being as they are, then I'm your man. Of course if
you feel money's dross before the thought of her, then I shall well
understand and we won't touch the subject no more. And, in any case, never
a breath must get to her ears else she'd leave my house like a whirlwind,
and quite right to do so. But if you feel that you could make shift with
another fine woman and might tear yourself away from Milly Bassett for a
bit in the bank--_if_ you feel that, William, and only so, then we can go
on talking."
William White laughed and ate a bit of pie that hung on his fork. Then he
drank from his cider runlet. "What a world!" he said.
Jonas didn't answer and let his great thought sink into the man.
Presently William put a nice point. "Needless to ask if you've whispered
any of this to her?"
"God's my judge, Bill."
"Well, there's one thing I'd put afore you, Jo. Suppose we can agree to a
price, what happens if, when your turn comes to offer, she turns you down
and we're both left?"
"A natural question, Bill, and I'd thought of it, for there's no vanity in
me and it might very likely happen. And my understanding of that position
is this: If she says 'No' to me, after you've given her her liberty, then
I've made a bad investment and my feeling would be to cut a loss; but if
on the other hand she says 'Yes,' then I'd go a bit higher."
"A sum down when I've chucked her, and a bit over if you get her."
"When you say a sum down, Bill, you'd better consider of it," explained
Jonas. "A sum down there will certainly be; but if you saw your way to
take the money by instalments, then you'd benefit considerable in the
upshot, because, by instalments, I could pay a good bit more than I could
in a lump."
"I see that," admitted the horseman. "Well, on the general questions, Jo,
I may say that I'll do business. That far I'm prepared to go; but when it
comes to figures, I'd very much like to hear your ideas. This is a bit out
of my experience; but I warn you, you've got to pay money."
"I know that," answered Jonas. "I know that very well indeed. I can't pay
half nor yet a quarter of what she'd be worth to me, for the reason a
king's ransom wouldn't do it; but money I will pay. I'll pay you a hundred
a year for four years, William."
"And interest while 'tis running?" asked the horseman.
"Yes," answered Jonas, "interest while 'tis running."
"That's if you don't get her?"
"No, Bill; that's if I do get her."
White considered. 'Twas very big money, of course, but he tried for a bit
more.
"You must remember that when I throw her over I'm a disgraced man, Jo."
"I wouldn't say that. 'Twill be a shadow on your name for a minute, but
such things fall out every day and be very quickly forgot. Milly's the
only one that matters and I don't think you're the best partner in the
world for her, else I'd never have touched the subject. But if you use
your cleverness and put it to her that 'tis undignified for you both to go
on waiting for ever, she'll very likely see it."
"She might, or again she mightn't."
"She would," declared Jonas. "I ain't watched you and her for a year for
nothing. This ain't going to be the shattering wrench for her you might
think, William."
White knew that very well, but dwelt on his own downfall, and loss. "Make
it five hundred--win or lose," he said at last, "and I'll oblige you."
And Jonas Bird agreed instantly, for at the bottom of his heart he weren't
feeling it no wildgoose chase for him; because, though a simple man in
some ways, he didn't lack caution, and he'd unfolded his feelings pretty
oft to Milly, speaking, of course, in general terms; and he well knew that
she felt high respect for his character and opinions and good position.
Then William spoke.
"If you'd like it in writing, you can have it," he said, "but for my part
I trust you, and I doubt not you trust me, and I'm inclined to think the
less that be put down on paper about it, the better. 'Tis a deed of
darkness, in a manner of speaking, and written documents have often
brought disasters with 'em afterwards, so us had best to trust each other
and sign nought." Jonas agreed to this most emphatic and then they parted.
But it weren't twenty-four hours later before the carpenter felt the deed
was afoot, for he soon saw that Milly had got a weight on her mind. She
said nought, however, till a week was past and then told Jonas,
confidential, that she savoured something in the air.
"There's some people can smell rain," she said, "and others, if they go in
a churchyard, know to a foot when they be walking over their own future
graves; and though I'm not one to meet trouble half-way, it's borne in on
me that I be going to face changes afore long."
"In what direction?" asked Jonas, cunning as a serpent. "God send you
don't mean that William be going to get his rise and take you away?"
"I do not," she said. "Quite the contrary. I mean that William be going to
change his mind about me."
"And would you call that meeting trouble exactly, or contrariwise?" asked
Bird.
"Well," she answered. "Between you and me, I may say that I shall
doubtless get over it; but I'm a good bit hurt, because it had got to be
an understood thing and I little like changes. But there it is: the man's
getting restless and be pruning his wings for flight if I know him."
"'Tis beyond belief that any living man should want to fly from you,"
declared Jonas. "I wouldn't come between lovers for a bag of gold; but in
a case like this, feeling for you as I always have done since you kept
your promise to Sarah with such amazing perfection--feeling that, if you
say the word, I'll talk to William White as no man yet have talked to
him."
"Do nothing," she said. "Let nature take its course with William; and if
it takes him away from me, so be it. I can very well endure to part from
the man and, so like as not, when I'm satisfied that things are so, I
shall tell him I understand, and give him his freedom."
"Such largeness of mind I never heard tell about in a woman," answered
Jonas.
And six weeks later William and Milly were cut loose, without any fuss on
her part but to the undying amazement of Thorpe-Michael. And then Jonas
paid his first instalment at dead of night and got a receipt for the same.
'Twas after that the carpenter's anxieties began. He'd hoped that Milly
would be a lot cast down by this reverse and that he'd fill the gap and
comfort her and support her through the sad affair; but she didn't want no
support. In fact she talked most sensible about being jilted and confessed
that it might be all for the best in the long run. "Nought happens save by
the will of Heaven," she said, "and I can look at it with a good
conscience which be a tower of strength, and I can even go so far as to
tell myself that Daisy Newte may make a better wife for Bill than me; for
that's where his eyes are turning."
"Daisy Newte! Good God--the blindness of the bachelor male!" swore Jonas.
And from that day forward he was at her--respectful, but unsleeping.
His fear was that, now she stood free of a man, her nice feeling would
take her from under his roof and of course there was plenty of women who
pointed this out to Milly Bassett; but in her fine way she despised the
mind that thinks evil for choice and said 'twas a pity that good thoughts
was not put into the human heart instead of bad ones.
She said: "If my character can't rise above Thorpe-Michael, 'tis pity. And
the man, or woman, who could whisper a bad thought against Jonas Bird be
beneath my notice and his'n."
And then he offered for her and she took him; and then, after that, of
course, she left his home till the wedding.
And the carpenter's childer yowled their heads off when she went, and
couldn't very easy be made to understand that Milly was only away for a
few weeks and would soon be back to bide with 'em. William tried hard to
get a bit more cash out of Jonas when he heard the glad news; but, though
feeling kindly to heaven above and earth beneath after his wonnerful
triumph, Milly's future husband felt that with his new calls and doing up
his home and buying poultry for his wife--birds being a thing she doted
on--that William must be content. He paid another fifty down and made it
clear that no more must be counted on for six months. And the horseman
said no more at that time, being a good bit occupied with Daisy Newte by
then. For she was walking with him and very near won. And afore Christmas,
he'd got her.
All went well and everybody wished Jonas joy and Milly luck. 'Twas thought
a very reasonable match, for Bird stood high in the public esteem and the
folk had long since felt that Milly might do much better than William. But
they admired her honesty and the way she'd stuck to him and felt she'd
been richly rewarded. In fact Jonas and Milly were a devoted pair and not
a cloud darkened their wedded life for a good few years.
Then came the fatal affair of the bargain, and though pretty easy about
the instalments till he'd got three children of his own, from that time
forth there's no doubt William began to fret Jonas cruel. Because, you
see, the crafty toad had bargained for interest running, and Jonas, not
understanding these things and guessing such matters was always five per
centum and no more, had agreed to pay it. But this is where William got
the better of him, for White went to a friend of his at Dartmouth and
between them they figured up a very clever scheme which caused Jonas a lot
of inconvenience.
They explained to him the wonderful ways of compound interest, and though
he couldn't see 'em, he had to feel 'em, and he found, as time passed,
that far from paying off William's five hundred, do what he might the
money still piled up against him. There was complications, too, for of
course he had no other secret than this from his wife, and Milly read him
like a book, and after they was wed four years, Jo reached a pitch when he
couldn't conceal his anguish. For presently, puzzling over the figures for
the hundredth time, he came to the fearful conclusion that he'd already
paid William over five hundred pounds, and yet, if White was to be
trusted, there was three figures of money still owing to him by compound
interest.
He had it out with William the next time he got him alone; but the
horseman declared himself as a good bit surprised that a little thing like
cash should fret such a happy and prosperous creature as Jonas Bird.
"Good powers!" he said, "haven't you found out that Milly was worth all
the money in the Bank of England? And then to grouse because you bain't
out of debt for her! Hell!" said William White, "you needn't think I
wouldn't be off the bargain to-morrow and gladly pay you all the money
twice over for Milly back again!"
Because, you see, his Daisy, though a nice girl up to a point, was very
human in some things and had failed, both as a wife and a mother, owing to
her fatal fondness for liquid refreshment. 'Twas a family weakness which
had been kept out of William's knowledge while he was courting; but
marriage and the cares of childer and so on, had woke a thirst in Daisy
that made her difficult. So William weren't in a mood to lighten up for
Jonas, and he said that figures can't lie and the loan must run its
appointed course if it took ten years to do so. He'd got the whip-hand, no
doubt, because it weren't a subject for any other ear, though Jonas, in
his despair, did once think of going to parson with it. But the thought of
laying bare the past and seeing parson's scorn was more than he could
face, and he hid it up.
At last, however, he felt the tax past bearing, for it was making an old
man of him; and then he braced himself and called on his Maker to see him
through and done the wisest thing that ever he had done. In a word, he
told Milly. He told her when they'd gone to bed one Christmas night and
unbosomed his troubled mind. He'd paid William another fifty only the week
night before and, as he presently confessed to Milly, 'twas the last straw
that broke his back and sent him to throw himself on her mercy.
He bade her list, then told the tale from the beginning, told it honest
without straining truth in any particular. And Milly listened and said not
a word till he was done.
"So there it is," finished Jonas--"a choice of evils for me 'twixt
stripping up the past afore your eyes and letting William bleed me to my
dying day seemingly. And knowing you, I reckoned the wisest thing was to
come to you with the naked tale and hide naught. William says figures
can't lie, and he may or may not be right, but I've got it fixed in my
mind that he's making 'em lie; and, be it as it will, he's had enough, and
I'm properly sick of putting big money in his pocket instead of yours,
where all that is mine belongs by right."
Milly kept silent a bit, but he knew by her calm breathing that she
weren't going to throw the house out of windows over it, or make a scene.
In fact, she'd never been known to make a scene in all her life and
weren't likely to begin now.
She spoke at last.
"There's some women would be a good bit put about to hear these things,
Jo," she said, and he granted the truth of it.
"I can't call home one but yourself as wouldn't," he said, "but you are
the top flower in the basket of women at Thorpe-Michael, and have got
intellects and the wit to see 'twas nothing but my great passion for you
as led me into this mess. And though business is business and no man can
ever say I drew back in a bargain, yet I've got a good bit enraged with
William lately, and I feel 'tis more'n time this here compounded interest
come to an end."
"How much have he had?" asked Milly, and Jonas gave her the figures, which
was branded in letters of fire on his mind, so to say.
"Five hundred and seventy-eight," he said, "and still he's got the front
to swear I owe him near two more hundred."
"I've puzzled sometimes where your money was going," she told him, "but,
knowing you, I well understood 'twas safe."
"Thank God you came to the task with your usual high courage and sense,"
he answered. "And thank God, also, that you think none the worse of me.
And don't you imagine I grudge the money itself. On the low level of cash
you was worth the Mint of England ten times over; but the question afore
me is, looking at my deal with William as a money bargain between man and
man, whether he ain't going a bit over and beyond doing me in the eye."
"I reckon he is," said Milly. "Five hundred and seventy-eight's enough,
Jo, and I'm proud, in a manner of speaking, you could rise it. I'm very
fortunate in having you for a husband, because the man wasn't born to suit
me better; and I should never have neighboured with William so fine as
what I have done with you. But you was fortunate, too, in finding a chap
as would take cash for what you was so willing to buy."
"I was," he granted. "Providence never done any member of my family such a
turn as it done me when it sent you to my roof; but, outside that,
touching William Bird, I be growing to feel--However, if you say 'Go on
paying, William,' I'll do so very well content; but if, on the other hand,
you reckon that the man's Jewing me and did ought to be spoke to, then
I'll be still better content."
"He shall be spoke to," she answered, "and I'll speak to him. We are very
good friends and I'm sorry for him, because he's drawn a blank; and I've
noticed, now and again, he's looked at me as if he was a good bit vexed we
ever parted. And no doubt he's had queer thoughts and weighed his money
against me and wondered whether it has served him better than what I
should."
"Damn queer thoughts, I'll lay my life," said Jonas. "And I'm sorry for
him, also as a Christian man, because he's quite clever enough to know
what he's lost, and the bitterness no doubt runs into my compound
interest."
"Go to sleep now," she said, "and fret no more. You can leave the rest to
me."
So he blessed her for the wonder she was, and, with the load lifted from
his heart, soon slept like a child.
Milly Bird took an early chance to see William, and what passed between
them would have been very exciting to know and perchance an interesting
side-glance on human nature; but none ever heard it save their Maker; and
not Jonas himself, though he was cruel inquisitive, ever larned no
details.
"'Tis no matter," said Milly to her husband. "We had a tell about it, and
William's all right and won't want no more money. He's a very clever chap
and ain't wishful for nobody to hear tell of his doings in the past, least
of all poor Daisy. So that's that. And there shan't be no ill blood and
there shan't be no more cash, and all friends notwithstanding."
Which fell out just as the remarkable woman ordained it should.