“In t’ pockets of mey auld breeks,” responded the innocent Cursty.
The words came upon his dear Aggy like a thunderclap. As the lady said afterwards, “any one might have knocked her down with a feather.” Elcy stared at her mother, and the mother stared at the daughter, in a maze of bewilderment. Neither liked to confess the truth to Cursty, and yet to delay doing so was every minute to diminish the probability of obtaining possession of the precious garments again.
At length Mrs. Sandboys did venture to break the matter to her husband. She told him she had disposed of his trowsers only a few moments before his return for a pot of mignionette and a couple of moss roses.
“Well, Aggy,” cried Cursty, when he had recovered from the first shock, “thee’ll have to suffer for’t as well as meysel for forty t’ notes I’d got in t’ pocket-book, thar was thy marriage lines that thee wud mek me bring up wi’ me, to show thee wast an honest woman, if ever thee sud want as much.”
“Waistoma! waistoma!” cried poor Mrs. Sandboys, when she heard of this, to her, the greatest loss of all. At first she raved against London, and London people, and London wickedness. Then she declared it was all Cursty’s fault, and owing to his nasty idle habits of never emptying his pockets, when he changed his clothes, but leaving everything to her to do. Next, she vowed she would go back to Buttermere that very night, for nothing but misery had befallen her ever since they had made up their mind to enjoy themselves.
However, when her anger had somewhat exhausted itself, she entreated her own dear Cursty to hasten after the flower-seller. The man could not be far off, unless he had discovered the prize he had got, and decamped with it to some other part of the town; but she was almost certain he had not felt anything in the pockets at the time he was looking the trowsers over in the passage, or else he would have been more anxious to have purchased them than he was.
Mr. Sandboys she directed to go one way, and Jobby another; for if her marriage lines were really gone, it was impossible to tell what might happen.
In obedience to her commands, Cursty and Jobby were soon out of the house, exploring every street and corner in quest of the flower-seller.
And here, we must, reader, for the present drop the curtain.