“Will you let me look at the book?”
“Yes, dear, that I will, if you promise me not to run away with it.”
I took the book from her hand; a short thick volume, at least a century old, bound with greasy black leather. I turned the yellow and dog’s-eared pages, reading here and there a sentence. Yes, and no mistake! His pen, his style, his spirit might be observed in every line of the uncouth-looking old volume—the air, the style, the spirit of the writer of the book which first taught me to read. [287] I covered my face with my hand, and thought of my childhood . . .
“This is a singular book,” said I at last; “but it does not appear to have been written to prove that thieving is no harm, but rather to show the terrible consequences of crime: it contains a deep moral.”
“A . . . but no matter; I will give you a crown for this volume.”
“No, dear, I will not sell the volume for a crown.”
“I am poor,” said I; “but I will give you two silver crowns for your volume.”
“No, dear, I will not sell my volume for two silver crowns; no, nor for the golden one in the king’s Tower down there; without my book I should mope and pine, and perhaps fling myself into the river; but I am glad you like it, which shows that I was right about you, after all; you are one of our party, and you have a flash about that eye of yours which puts me just in mind of my dear son. No, dear, I won’t sell you my book; but, if you like, you may have a peep into it whenever you come this way. I shall be glad to see you; you are one of the right sort, for, if you had been a common one, you would have run away with the thing; but you scorn such behaviour, and, as you are so flash of your money, though you say you are poor, you may give me a tanner to buy a little baccy with; I love baccy, dear, more by token that it comes from the plantations to which the blessed woman was sent.”
“What’s a tanner?” said I.