'I shall let you know when I think the time is opportune. Meanwhile, do as little evil as possible; and if you can deceive the captain in this present enterprise, do so, and leave the locks alone.' Then The Lifter was gone.
That same evening towards the set of sun as 'Old Snarleyow,' as the miserly farmer was called, was limping in from the out-houses to his residence, he saw approaching his gate a lad with a pale and dejected face. His hair was flaxen and his skin had in it just the slightest tinge of apple-green. Imagine wasting such an exquisite colour upon the complexion of a robber! He hobbled towards the gate of the stately old mansion, towards which Snarleyow was also hobbling; and he called in a feeble voice in which you could catch a note of pain:
'Good sir, I pray you to give me the shelter of your house for the night. Please, sir, do. Snow is driving out of the east, and the wind is bitter cold. I cannot live this night if you do not take me in; for I am ill and lame.'
'Go to blazes about your business. Be off to the poor commissioners; they'll attend to your case,' replied the old man as he looked around, bent, and crabbedly thrusting the end of his stick several times into the ground.
'But I shall die before I reach the poor commissioners,' answered the invalid in the same soft, sad voice.
'Then die, and be d—d to you for a tramp,' the old man said, poking his stick once more into the ground and resuming his way. But he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, and almost tumbled upon his turned up, cross old nose. When he recovered he turned round and fairly danced with rage, shaking his stick at the poor wayfarer, who stood meekly by at the gate, shivering there like a dog.
Never a move did he make as the old man with menacing stick approached him, which so incensed Snarleyow that he hastened his pace to a decrepit run. But, as perverse fate or the green-complexioned gentleman at the gate would have it, the old man tripped across a pump handle which was frozen in the ground, and fell directly, and with all his might, upon the tip of his nez retrousse'.
Upon the ground he lay spluttering, writhing, and giving vent to an occasional shriek till there was a hurrying of feet in the mansion; then the meek and jaded traveller moved gently away till his person was hidden in the pines. Standing against a giant bole the traveller thus soliquized:
'To please Roland I promised to be good; and I felt much good in my heart. I was goeen to find some way of deceiveen my mates; but the old Christeen was too uncharitable, and I shall pick his locks. He would not care if I was dyeen, starveen on the very snow before his eyes. Yes, I'll pick his locks; and what comes to my share I'll give to the poor.'
Now which of these two men, that robber or the respectable old miser
Christian, finds more favour in God's sight, think my readers?