Hodge was bidden into the hall, and stood before the Squire, the light from the last blazing log on the ample hearth revealing his pale and anxious face.
"Your honour, sir," began Hodge, stroking his hair straight down his forehead, and kicking out behind with his right foot, "you see, I be come about that 'ere twenty pound. The old bit of furniture as was turned out of Moat got away to us, and mother she set it up in our kitchen. And, master, we never knowed of no paper in it till a week agone, and then when I hears about the advertising, we hunts it over, thinkin' it were wanted for sake of summat in it, and sure enough we finds the paper."
"And did you not think the right thing to do was to bring it here at once?" asked the Squire, as Hodge came to a pause.
"Yes, sure, master, that I did. But mother's got took up with the priest and his new religion, along of him getting her to heaven comfortable, and she goes and confesses to him summat as lay on her conscience, and he gets hold of the paper somehow, and made a deal about it. So when I comes home, I says,—
"'I'm goin' to give up that old lumber, and get twenty pounds for it, and you give me that bit of parchment to go with it.'
"And to that, she screeches out that his reverence, as she calls him, took it away, and it seems he be going to get the twenty pounds into the bargain, for the good of the Church, he says; and if we don't let him, he'll bring summat against her in t'other world, so as she'll get no blessin' nor absolution. But, master, you see, I'm not of that persuasion, not I, nor don't mean to be, and I'm a poor man with a large family, and mother to keep, so I says,—
"'I'll go and make confession too, and to a right honest gentleman what 'll do right.'
"So I come, sir, and if I'd 'a had my will, I'd 'a come at first start, soon as I knowed you'd a regard for th' old lumber. It ain't worth much, and can go into th' bargain, sir if you've a mind."
"We have no particular regard for the old lumber, Hodge, but we ought to have been asked to take the overhauling of it, after you knew it was being inquired for," said Mr. Hazelwood.
"Yes, sir, it was all along of mother going to that 'ere chapel, I do assure ye," urged Hodge, gloomily.