'What is all this noise, Mosk?' he cried sharply. 'Do you wish to lose your license?'
Mosk, who was seated in an arm-chair, smiling and singing, with a very red face, was struck dumb by the chaplain's sudden entrance and sharp rebuke. Bell, flushed and angered, was also astonished to see Mr Cargrim, but hailed his arrival with joy as likely to have some moral influence on her riotous father. Personally she detested Cargrim, but she respected his cloth, and was glad to see him wield the thunders of his clerical position.
'That is right, Mr Cargrim!' she cried with flashing eyes. 'Tell him he ought to be ashamed of drinking and singing with mother so ill upstairs.'
'I don't mean t'do any 'arm,' said Mosk, rising sheepishly, for the shock of Cargrim's appearance sobered him a good deal. 'I wos jus' havin' a glass to celebrate a joyful day.'
'Cannot you take your glass without becoming intoxicated?' said Cargrim, in disgust. 'I tell you what, Mosk, if you go on in this way, I shall make it my business to warn Sir Harry Brace against you.'
'I told you how t'would be, father,' put in Bell, reproachfully.
'You onnatural child, goin' agin your parent,' growled Mr Mosk. 'Wasn't I drinking to your health, 'cause the old 'un at Heathcroft wos passin' to his long 'ome? Tell me that!'
'What do you mean, Mosk?' asked the chaplain, starting.
'Nothing, sir,' interposed Bell, hurriedly. 'Father don't know what he is sayin'.'
'Yes, I do,' contradicted her father, sulkily. 'Old Mr Leigh, th' pass'n of Heathcroft, is dying, and when he dies you'll live at Heathcroft with—'