"Time's hup—I'm going hawking."
Bet felt herself turning cold and hot, as the meaning of Will's words seemed to scathe and burn her brain. Then, quick as a flash of lightning, another thought came to her, and she smiled, and tore the obnoxious and cruel letter into a thousand little bits.
"That wasn't from my Will," she said. "Dent wrote it—not Will. My lad,—why he jest couldn't put words on paper sech as them! This is Dent's villainy;—yes, Jenny, I'm a-coming," she called out in quite a cheerful tone.
A weight was lifted from her mind when the conviction became assured that this letter was none of Will's. She went downstairs, and Jenny and she, on the best of terms, commenced their life of hawking together.
Will was free,—no doubt on that point arose to shake her confidence,—but Will's whole nature had not changed. He who possessed the tenderest and the truest heart for her in all the world had not lost it during one week in jail. Bet almost sang as she accompanied Jenny through the Warrington streets. Will was free—freed by her act,—freed by her sacrifice; but a fortnight still stood between her and her doom. For a fortnight, therefore, she could be almost happy, and could at least devote her time to searching for her brothers, and trying to rescue them from the tender mercies of their most cruel father.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Two or three days after Will's second examination before the magistrates-an examination which had ended, owing to Dent's testimony against him, in his being remanded for trial at the coming assizes-Hester Wright was standing in her little room, putting on her shawl and bonnet to go out to her usual day's work. Hester was not at all a model worker; nor had she any of the qualities which ensure commercial success. She was clever all round; and whether it was singing her soul away, or toiling by the hour at shop needlework, or hawking fruit and vegetables about the Liverpool streets, she did a little better than anybody else; but as she would never sell her gift of song, and as her nature was in several respects, notwithstanding its real depth and earnestness, volatile, she could never keep very long to the same mode of earning her bread. A month or two of needlework would be followed by a month or two of hawking: she did not earn more than enough to keep soul and body together by either of these trades; but money and creature comforts were alike matters of indifference to her, and as a rule she preferred the roving life of a hawker, as it brought her more into contact with her fellow creatures. Hawking was in the ascendant now, and she was hurrying out to replenish her basket at St. John's Market when a boy unceremoniously opened her door, and, thrusting a crumpled and dirty piece of paper into her hand, stood staring at her while she opened it.
The letter was a scrawl from Will Scarlett.
"Dear Hetty," it ran, "I may see a friend to-day. Come to me at noon, for I am in a sore taking.—Your cousin Will."