“It wor about my mate, Joe Williams. You know I telled you about him. Him and me we shared the same barrer, and the same cart of flowers. Joe was as good a feller as breathed; but he worn’t lucky. He had a sickly wife, for one thing, and four little bits of kids. He turned over a tidy bit of money; but he couldn’t save, not ef he was to try ever so. It seemed as ef saving and prudence worn’t in him. Do you think he’d pay a shilling a week to a buryin’ club or a sick club, or aught of them clubs as is the stay of working men? No, no, that worn’t Joe. It wor all spend, spend with him. To be sure his wife was sickly, and he couldn’t deny her nothink, and she wor more to blame than he. That woman had a perfect crank for smelling out money. Ef Joe brought ’ome as much as ’arf-a-crown, meaning to save it for a rainy day, she’d unearth it. It were no use his trying to save, for Clara were more for spending even than hisself.
“Well, one day an uncle of his died, and left him five sovereigns in an old teapot. Joe gave the teapot to Clara, and said nothing about the windfall inside. But he gave them five sovereigns to me jest a week ago, wrapped up in the identical brown-paper as I handed to you two nights back, Jill. And he says, says poor Joe, with a sort of a wink of a tear in his eye, ‘Ef the worst comes, Nat, that’ll bury me,’ says he, ‘and I won’t be on the parish,’ says he. I can tell you, Jill, that money wor like a millstone round me, I were so feart of losing it. And I were fine and glad when I handed it on to you, lass.
“Well, poor Joe, he dropped down dead yesterday morning, jest when he was coming to help me fill up the barrer. It were orful sudden, and poor Clara’s nearly off her head.”
Nat spoke huskily; the sorrowful feelings of the morning were moving him again.
“He’s dead,” he continued; “the best feller living, the kindest heart as breathed. I’ll never meet his like, he wor that trusting and that companionable. We wor mates for close on three year, and never was there a word atween us. I can’t get over his dying off so sharp; but it is a good thing as you has the money safe, Jill.”
“Yes; that’s a werry good thing,” replied Jill. She paused again.
The moon was now riding in majesty across the dark blue heavens; the lovers had turned their steps towards Howard’s Buildings. Jill was trembling no longer; every nerve was on tension, each beat of her heart was warning her to be careful, to betray nothing. She wondered at her own sudden calm, at the power of brain with which she seemed endowed. She felt so still now, so capable of acting prudently in this terrible emergency, that she was even inclined to test Nat, to see for herself what he would do and how he would look if he really knew that his dead pal’s money was gone.
“It is a good thing as I has them five sovereigns,” she continued; “but s’pose as they wor lost?”
“What do yer mean, Jill?” Nat’s honest, open face clouded over, his blue eyes flashed a steely light of anger. “You oughtn’t even to say sech a thing in jest,” he continued.
“No, no, in course I oughtn’t; but it is a way with me to look at every side o’ a picter. You giv’d the money two nights ago to a gel as could be trusted. You loved that gel, you thought a sight on her; she had a mother the soberest o’ women, and she herself were honest as the day. You’re a lucky feller, Nat Carter, to have found a gel that lives up to yer creed. You’re rare and lucky, though I say it as shouldn’t, to marry a gel with sober, quiet, and honest relations. You wouldn’t like it no other sort, would you?”