"'Yo're cruel hard on a mon as has been buryin' his child,' says I; and Maister Tummas laughs. 'I suppose ye think she's so well off, ye'll be sendin' the other to join her?' says he. 'What do 'ee mean?' I asks. 'I never heard as childer con live on grass,' says he, turnin' round serious like; 'nor as bread cud be got for naught; it doan't grow i' th' fields hereabouts, ready baked! If I'd gi'en ye the sack i'ste'd o' the pump, where 'ud they be, eh? Look 'ee here, if ye be a wise mon, ye'll go to work wi'out more words; an' if ye be a fool, ye con go an' spout about free Britons i' the public; but, if 'ee do that, doan't talk to me about your childer, for I shan't tak' 'ee back, an' your big words won't fill their empty stomachs.' So I went back, an' Maister Tummas an' I war quits; for he doan't niver cast a thing up when he's done wi' it. Clemmin' ain't pleasant, an' I hadn't much hankerin' for it arter all. Howsumever, I doan't drink when I've got his horses now. Naw, naw; I saves up for Sunday; an' I bain't sure as it ain't th' best way all round, to tak' one's fill on th' right day. One gets a more thorough satisfaction out o' one big drink, than i' sips all th' week; doan't 'ee think so, ma'am?"
"I daresay," said Meg absently. A passing wonder as to what Barnabas would have said to this definition of Sunday as pre-eminently "th' right day for drink" floated through her mind--with also a faint disgust at the flavour of brutality in the story about Tom; but they were nearing N----town by this time. In two more hours she might be at Lupcombe!
It was market day, and the streets were crowded. Meg accompanied Long John to the stables of the "Pig and Whistle," and saw Molly comfortably housed. Having lamed her, it was the least she could do. Then she proceeded to a pawnbroker's. She had the preacher's savings in her pocket, but she could not touch them. It might be a straining of gnats; but she wouldn't use his money in an enterprise he objected to.
She had something else in her purse as well, and that she would part with, though the parting cost her a pang.
The diamond-circled miniature that had been stolen from her when a child; that the preacher had brought back; that was on her neck, when he and she walked out of Ravenshill together, long, long ago--ah, how long ago it seemed now!--she could sell that.