John laughed,—a curious little laugh.
“Then this morning,” went on Mrs. Trimwell, “Vicar come in. He’d seen him yesterday afternoon at the front door. Wanted to know what he’d come for. As if a visitor can’t come to the house without me answering a penny catechism from Vicar. I up and as good as told him that. And he began talking about loyalty to the family at the Castle, and it’s never a word of loyalty he’s had for them, and I can tell you. We got to words a bit, and Vicar’s temper isn’t never sweetened with the best sugar, but I kept mine. I called to mind a thing or two as he’d said of the family, and I let fall a hint now and again that I hadn’t forgotten it neither. It’s wonderful the way it riles a person if you’ve a good memory and let them know it.”
John grinned.
“I’ll not be repeating all he said,” pursued Mrs. Trimwell with dignity, “but I will say there were some things I didn’t expect to hear a parson say. But they’ll come back to himself. You can’t ever be real spiteful but they does. Did I ever tell you about Mrs. Ashby and Lydia Ponsland?”
John intimated that she had not
“Them two always had their knife into me, seeing that I gave them short shrift when they come here with gossiping lies of my husband drinking at the Blue Dragon over to Whortley. Lord love you, sir, he’s never touched a drop more’n was good for him since the day we married. I’ll not swear to before that, seeing as young men will be young men all the world over. Anyhow I wasn’t going to listen to no lies from Mrs. Ashby and Lydia Ponsland, and told them they was liars to their face, which wasn’t perhaps the pleasantest hearing for them, though the truth. My words stuck, I’m thinking, and turned a trifle sour, and they planned a bit of revenge. ’Twas the silliest thing they did, though cruel at that, and you’d never believe folks could have been that childish, if I didn’t tell you ’twas the gospel truth. ’Twas Christmas Eve, and I was over to Whortley for a bit of shopping. My husband was at home with the children, when five o’clock or thereabouts there come a ring at the front door. Robert he goes to see what ’tis. There’s a man there, and a cart outside. ‘’Tis the coffin for your wife,’ says he. Robert, he fails all of a tremble, and never thinking, like a man, I couldn’t ha’ ordered my coffin anyhows if I’d been dead. He don’t understand it, and stays arguefying, and mortal frightened. In the middle of their speechifying I comes home, and I tell you it took me ten minutes and more to make him believe I hadn’t no call for a coffin yet awhile. ’Twas them two as had ordered it, as I knew well enough, though couldn’t never bring it clear home to them. But they was paid for their evilness. Mrs. Ashby, she’s lost her money, and is in a two shilling attic at Whortley this very day, and Lydia’s down with rheumatic fever what the doctor says she’ll not be getting over this side of next Christmas. When God pays He don’t pay in halfpence.”
The vigour with which Mrs. Trimwell brushed the crumbs from the cloth served to emphasize her statement.
“It was,” said John, “an astonishingly idiotic thing for them to do.”
“Idiotic!” ejaculated Mrs. Trimwell, “I should think it was idiotic. But there, they’d lost their tempers and kept them lost for weeks; and if you mislay your temper like that it turns that sour you’d be surprised. I’m for thinking Vicar hasn’t found his yet, nor will be finding it for a bit. But as I says to him, if a man finds his chance like this one has, you can’t be surprised if he takes it. If he don’t he’s a fool, and no more and no less. If you get a chance, take it, says I, if you don’t it goes off in a huff to somebody else.”
“Then,” remarked John ruminatively, “it would be your advice that a chance should be taken at all hazards, even at the expense of someone else?”