“Yes! go it!” cried the old man, “go on marking it off, all your minutes and hours, but I don’t mean to die yet, so you needn’t think it. I’m not so old as all that, and if doctor ’ll only get well, I’ll astonish some on ’em.”
He changed his position, stared at his fire, and laboriously, and with many a groan, got down his old leaden tobacco box and pipe, filled slowly, lit up, and began to smoke; but somehow he did not seem to enjoy his pipe, and removed it again and again to go on muttering to himself.
“Well, suppose I did? A man must make a few pounds to keep himself out of the workhouse. They should pay the saxon better if they didn’t want him to. Tchah! What’s a few old bones?”
There was an interval of smoking, and then the old man resumed his complainings.
“Turning ill like that. What did he go and turn ill like that for, just as I wanted him so badly? It’s too bad o’ doctor. I wouldn’t ha’ let him go to the old morslem if I’d known he’d turn queer arterward. It’s my b’leef that young Tom Candlish gave him an ugly knock that night. But I warn’t there. Hi—hi—hi! I warn’t there. I didn’t want to be mixed up with it.”
He shifted his seat, and as he did so painfully, his jaw dropped, and he sat fixed and staring at the window, where at one corner there was a curious, rough-looking object, which remained stationary for some time and then moved slowly till first one and then a second eye appeared, gazed into the little cottage interior, and slowly descended again.
“Who—who—what’s that?” faltered the old man. “Is it—is it—tchah! It’s Joe Chegg, peeping and prying again to see if my Dally’s here.”
Recovering from his scare, the old man smoked away viciously for a time, and then grinned hideously.
“If I’d only been well,” he muttered, “and that doctor had let me have some more of his stuff, I’d ha’ took my spade and crope round by the back, and I’d ha’ come ahint that iddit and give him such a flop. Sneaking allus after my Dally, as if it was like she’d wed a thing like him.”
“Why don’t doctor come?” he groaned, as a twinge made him twist painfully in his seat. “It’s about murder: that’s what it is; and they all want to get rid of me now—parson and all; and then things ’ll go to ruin about the old church. But they may get a new saxon if they like. Let ’em have Joe Chegg: I don’t care. Much good he’ll do ’em. Disgrace to the old church: that’s what he’ll be; and go in o’ Sundays smelling of paint and putty, till he most drives Parson Salis mad. Disgrace to the church: that’s what he’ll be. Eh? eh? Who’s that? Who’s that? Hallo! Eh? Who’s that at the door? You, Dally? Oh, you’ve come at last!”