"I telled ye not to heed her," said Mrs. Davenport, a little angrily. "She knows well enough what it is,—too well, belike. I was not in when they sarved it; but Mrs. Heming (her as lives next door) was, and she spelled out the meaning, and made it all clear to Mrs. Wilson. It's a summons to be a witness on Jem's trial—Mrs. Heming thinks, to swear to the gun; for, yo see, there's nobbut [47] her as can testify to its being his, and she let on so easily to the policeman that it was his, that there's no getting off her word now. Poor body; she takes it very hard, I dare say!"
| Footnote 47: |
"Nobbut," none-but. "No man sigh evere God
no but the oon bigetun sone."—Wiclif's Version. [(Return)] |
Mrs. Wilson had waited patiently while this whispered speech was being uttered, imagining, perhaps, that it would end in some explanation addressed to her. But when both were silent, though their eyes, without speech or language, told their hearts' pity, she spoke again in the same unaltered gentle voice (so different from the irritable impatience she had been ever apt to show to every one except her husband,—he who had wedded her, broken-down and injured)—in a voice so different, I say, from the old, hasty manner, she spoke now the same anxious words,
"What is this? Will you tell me?"
"Yo'd better give it me at once, Mrs. Wilson, and let me put it out of your sight.—Speak to her, Mary, wench, and ask for a sight on it; I've tried, and better-tried to get it from her, and she takes no heed of words, and I'm loth to pull it by force out of her hands."
Mary drew the little "cricket" [48] out from under the dresser, and sat down at Mrs. Wilson's knee, and, coaxing one of her tremulous, ever-moving hands into hers, began to rub it soothingly; there was a little resistance—a very little, but that was all; and presently, in the nervous movement of the imprisoned hand, the parchment fell to the ground.
| Footnote 48: |
"Cricket," a stool.
[(Return)] |
Mary calmly and openly picked it up without any attempt at concealment, and quietly placing it in sight of the anxious eyes that followed it with a kind of spell-bound dread, went on with her soothing caresses.
"She has had no sleep for many nights," said the girl to Mrs. Davenport, "and all this woe and sorrow,—it's no wonder."
"No, indeed!" Mrs. Davenport answered.