The minutes dragged themselves away, too slowly in one sense, too quickly in another. The solemn boom of the half-hour rang out into the sleeping morning. Poll rose very softly, and dressed herself.
“I must have some money,” she murmured. “I’ll take a sovereign or two out of Jill’s stocking. She’d be glad to give it me, bless her! and I’ll write on a scrap of paper that I took it, and that I’m gone, and that she’ll never be troubled by me no more. Oh, poor Jill, it ’ud be cruel to write like that, for I never did trouble her. With all my sins, I never troubled my gel. We was knit too close, heart to heart, for either of us to trouble t’other.”
Poll stooped down as she spoke, drew away the bed-clothes, and putting her hand lightly and softly against Jill’s warm throat, revealed a narrow blue ribbon, to which a key was attached. Taking a pair of scissors out of her pocket, she cut the ribbon, and with the key in her hand went into the kitchen.
She opened the drawer of the bureau, and pulling out the old stocking, opened it, and spread the contents of a small gingham bag on the top of the dresser.
Jill, by care and management, had collected between four and five pounds. There were three sovereigns, a half-sovereign, some silver, and some coppers in the bag. Besides this there was a little parcel wrapped up carefully in tissue paper, and brown-paper over it. Poll opened this, and saw that it contained five bright-looking sovereigns.
“I didn’t know Jill was so rich,” she murmured. “It’s a good thing: she’ll have somewhat to furnish her house with. Now, how little can I do with? A sovereign and ten shillings’ worth of silver. That will be ’eaps. Oh, my gel, I wouldn’t rob you of a penny ef I could help it, but you are the last to grudge it to me.”
She returned the rest of the money to the old stocking, and shut the drawer. Then she considered what sort of note she should write to Jill. It must be brief, for time was passing. It must also be brief because poor Poll was a very bad scribe.
She found a sheet of thin paper, and dipping a rusty pen into a penny bottle of ink, scribbled a few words.
“Dear Jill,
“This is to say as I’ll come back again when I’m cured. I’ll ha’ no pain when I come back, my gel, so you make yourself ’appy. I ’as took one pound in gold, and ten shillings in silver out of the old stocking.