“I hope it will have that effect,” Will laughed.
“Now, John, I told you about my adventures; let me hear a little village gossip.”
John’s tale was not a very long, nor, it must be owned, a very interesting one. Mary Johnson, Elizabeth Cruikshank, Mary [pg 211]Leaper, and Susie Thurston had all had boys, while there had been five girls born. It was not necessary, however, to specify the names of their mothers, as girls were considered quite secondary persons in Scarcombe. One small cargo had been run, but the revenue people were so sharp that the French lugger had given up making the village a landing-place. John Mugby and his two sons had been drowned, and John Hawkins’s boat had been smashed up. As a result of the decline of smuggling there had been a revulsion of the feeling against Will, and the four men who had been the ringleaders in the movement had made themselves so generally obnoxious that they had had to leave the village.
At seven o’clock Will said:
“Now, father, I must be moving. Here are fifty guineas. They will last you for nearly a year. I’ll hand another fifty to Mr. Archer, and ask him to send you twenty pounds at a time. I’ll probably be back in England before it has all gone, and if not I will manage to find a means of sending more over to you.”
“I sha’n’t sleep,” the old woman said; “I never shall sleep with all that money in the house. It is sure to get known about, and I should never feel safe.”
“Very well, mother, take the money up to Mr. Warden, and ask him to hand you a guinea every Monday.”
“Tom Stevens,” said the old woman, “I will ask you to go up to the rectory with me this very evening. I daren’t keep it here, and I daren’t carry it through the village, for there might be a pedlar about, and everybody knows that pedlars are apt to be thieves.”
“Very well,” Tom said with a smile, “I will go with you, [pg 212]missis, when Will has left. I am big enough to tackle a pedlar if we meet one on the way.”
“Thank you very heartily, Tom! I’ll be comfortable now; but I should never get a wink of sleep with fifty gold guineas in the house.”