“My man died in Bradford, and he left me nothing but four helpless childer, and I hev a sister in Bradford who will take care of them while I go back to my old place as pastry cook at the Black Swan Hotel.”
“That would be a good plan, Nancy.”
“For sure it would, Miss Josepha, but we awned our cottage, and our bee skeps, and two dozen poultry, and our old loom. I can’t turn them into brass again, and so I’m most clemmed with it all.”
“How much do you want for the ‘all you awn’?”
“I would count mysen in luck, if I got one hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Is that sum its honest worth, not a penny too much, or a penny too little?”
“It is just what it cost us; ivery penny, and not a penny over, or less.”
“Then I’ll buy it, if all is as thou says. I’ll hev my lawyer look it over, and I’ll see what the squire says, and if thou hes been straight with me, thou can go home, and pack what tha wants to take with thee.”
This incident was the initial purchase of many other cottages sold for similar reasons, and when Josepha went back to London, she took with her the title deeds of a large share of Annis village property. “But, Antony,” she said, “I hev paid the full value of ivery deed I hold, ay, in some cases more than their present value, but I do not doubt I shall get all that is mine when the time is ripe for more, and more, and more mills.”
“Was this thy plan, when thou took that room in the Inn?”