“An’ who else should it be? Where’s your memory gone, Richard Hunton, and you not such a great age either? Where are you stayin’?”
Shame overcame him; his lips trembled, his mild blue eyes filled with tears. I told the tale as I had heard it, and Mrs Jakes’s indignation was good to see.
“Not keep you on ’alf a crown! Send you to the House! May the Lord forgive them! You wouldn’t eat no more than a fair-sized cat, and not long for this world either, that’s plain to see. No, Richard Hunton, you don’t go to the House while I’m above ground; it’d make my good man turn to think of it. You’ll come ’ome with me and the little ’un there. I’ve my washin’, and a bit put by for a rainy day, and a bed to spare, and the Lord and the parson will see I don’t come to want.”
She stopped breathless, her defensive motherhood in arms.
The old man said quaveringly, in the pathetic, grudging phrase of the poor, which veils their gratitude while it testifies their independence, “Maybe I might as well.” He rose with difficulty, picked up his bundle and stick, the small child replaced the kitten in its basket, and thrust her hand in her new friend’s.
“Then ’oo is grandad tum back,” she said.
Mrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pocket, and extracted a penny, which she pressed on me.
“It’s little enough, mister,” she said.
Then, as I tried to return it: “Nay, I’ve enough, and yours is poor paid work.”
I hope I shall always be able to keep that penny; and as I watched the three going down the dusty white road, with the child in the middle, I thanked God for the Brotherhood of the Poor.