“And it’s my belief, Gemp, that you’re about the silliest owd maulkin that ever stepped! There, I won’t quarrel with thee. Parson? Pshaw!”
“Well, thou’lt see, mun, thou’lt see! Committed for trial, eh? And how about the other fellow!”
“What, Crellock? Oh, they’ve got him too. He came smelling after Hallam, who was like a decoy bird to him. Wanted to see him in the cage; and they let him see Hallam, and—”
“Ah, I heard that Hallam told the constable Crellock was worse than he, and they took him too. Yes, I heard that. Hallo! here comes Hallam’s maid—doctor’s owd lass, Thisbe. Let’s get a word wi’ her.”
Gemp shuffled out of the tailor’s shop, and made for Thisbe, who was coming down the street, with her head up and her nose in the air.
“Mornin’, good mornin’,” he said, with one of his most amiable grins.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” said Thisbe sharply; and she went straight on to Miss Heathery’s, knocked sharply, and waited, gazing defiantly about the place the while.
“Well, she’s a stinger, she is!” muttered Gemp, standing scraping away at his face with his forefinger. “Do her good to be married, and hev some one with the rule over her. Humph! she’s gone. Now what does she want there?”
The answer was very simple, though it was full of mystery to Gemp. Thisbe wanted her mistress and the child, who had gone to Miss Heathery’s after dark, Millicent’s soul revolting against the idea of staying at the old home now that it was in the possession of Christie Bayle, her husband’s bitterest foe.
The gossips were quite correct. Hallam had been examined thrice before the county magistrates, and enough had been traced to prove that for a long time he had been speculating largely, losing, and making up his losses by pledging, at one particular bank, the valuable securities with which Dixons’ strong-room was charged. When one of these was wanted he pledged another and redeemed it, while altogether the losses were so heavy that, had not the old bank proprietors been very wealthy men, Dixons’ must have gone.