“And a good one, Miss Hallam; anyhow, them as bodes good are t’ likeliest to get it. I do think that.”
So Elizabeth went to sleep full of pleasant hopes and aims. It had always been her intention to pay every penny that Antony Hallam owed; and she felt a strange sense of delight and freedom in the knowledge that the duty had begun. Fortunately, she had in this sense of performed duty all the reward she asked or expected, for if it had not satisfied her, she would have surely been grieved and disappointed with the way the information was generally received. No one is ever surprised at a bad action, but a good one makes human nature at once look for a bad motive for it.
“She’s found out that it wont pay her to hold on to other folks’ money. Why-a! nobody notices her, and nivver a sweetheart comes her way.”
“I thought we’d bring her to terms, if we nobbut made it hot enough for her. Bless you, Josiah! women folks can’t live without their cronying and companying.”
“It’s nobbut right she should pay ivery penny, and I tell’d her so last time I met her on Hallam Common.”
“Did ta? Why, thou hed gumption! Whativer did she say to thee?”
“She reddened up like t’ old squire used to, and her eyes snapped like two pistols; and says she, ‘Marmaduke Halcroft, you’ll get every farthing o’ your money when I get ready to pay it.’”
“Thank you, miss,” says I, “all the same, I’ll be bold to mention that I’ve waited going on five years for it.”
“‘And you may wait five years longer, for there are others besides you,’ says she, as peacocky as any thing, ‘but you’ll get it;’ and wi’ that, she laid her whip across her mare in a way as made me feel it were across my face, and went away so quick I couldn’t get another word in. But women will hev t’ last word, if they die for ‘t.”
“If she’ll pay t’ brass, she can hev as many words as she wants; I’m none flayed for any woman’s tongue—not I, indeed.”