The old woman held up her finger again, as before, and replying, “Come, lad! It’s no use leading me to that, and there leaving me. I want to know” waited for his answer. Rob, after a discomfited pause, suddenly broke out with, “How can I pronounce the names of foreign places, Mrs Brown? What an unreasonable woman you are!”
“But you have heard it said, Robby,” she retorted firmly, “and you know what it sounded like. Come!”
“I never heard it said, Misses Brown,” returned the Grinder.
“Then,” retorted the old woman quickly, “you have seen it written, and you can spell it.”
Rob, with a petulant exclamation between laughing and crying—for he was penetrated with some admiration of Mrs Brown’s cunning, even through this persecution—after some reluctant fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, produced from it a little piece of chalk. The old woman’s eyes sparkled when she saw it between his thumb and finger, and hastily clearing a space on the deal table, that he might write the word there, she once more made her signal with a shaking hand.
“Now I tell you beforehand what it is, Misses Brown,” said Rob, “it’s no use asking me anything else. I won’t answer anything else; I can’t. How long it was to be before they met, or whose plan it was that they was to go away alone, I don’t know no more than you do. I don’t know any more about it. If I was to tell you how I found out this word, you’d believe that. Shall I tell you, Misses Brown?”
“Yes, Rob.”
“Well then, Misses Brown. The way—now you won’t ask any more, you know?” said Rob, turning his eyes, which were now fast getting drowsy and stupid, upon her.
“Not another word,” said Mrs Brown.
“Well then, the way was this. When a certain person left the lady with me, he put a piece of paper with a direction written on it in the lady’s hand, saying it was in case she should forget. She wasn’t afraid of forgetting, for she tore it up as soon as his back was turned, and when I put up the carriage steps, I shook out one of the pieces—she sprinkled the rest out of the window, I suppose, for there was none there afterwards, though I looked for ’em. There was only one word on it, and that was this, if you must and will know. But remember! You’re upon your oath, Misses Brown!”