“Because it’s a trifle abusive; actionable, a lawyer might say,” he answered, stopping a laugh. “Ah! ha! a big diamond! I’m as glad of this as if anybody had left me a thousand pounds,” continued the good old pater. “I’ve not had that boy out of my head since, night or day. We’ll have him back to finish his holidays—eh, Johnny?”
Whether I went along on my head or my tail, doing the Squire’s errand, I didn’t exactly know. To my mind the thief stood disclosed—Roger Monk. But I did not much like to betray him to the Squire. As a compromise between duty and disinclination, I told Tod. He went straight off to the Squire, and Roger Monk was ordered to the room.
He did not take the accusation as Sanker took it—noisily. About as cool and hardy as any fellow could be, stood he; white, angry retaliation shining from his sullen face. And, for once, he looked full at the Squire as he spoke.
“This is the second time I have been accused wrongfully by you or yours, sir. You must prove your words. A bank-note, a ring, a false diamond (taken to be a true one), in a blue ribbon; and I have stolen them. If you don’t either prove your charge to be true, or withdraw the imputation, the law shall make you, Mr. Todhetley. I am down in the world, obliged to take a common situation for a while; but that’s no reason why I should be browbeat and put upon.”
Somehow, the words, or the manner, told upon the Squire. He was not feeling sure of his grounds. Until then he had never cast a thought of ill on Roger Monk.
“What were you doing here, Monk? What made you come up stealthily, and creep stealthily away again?” demanded Tod, who had assumed the guilt out and out.
“As to what I was doing here, I came to ask a question about my work,” coolly returned Monk. “I walked slowly, not stealthily; the day’s hot.”
“You had better turn out your pockets, Monk,” said the Squire.
He did so at once, just as Sanker had done unbidden, biting his lips to get some colour into them. Lots of odds and ends of things were there; string, nails, a tobacco-pipe, halfpence, and such like; but no blue bow. I don’t think the Squire knew whether to let him off as innocent, or to give him into custody as guilty. At any rate, he seemed to be in hesitation, when who should appear on the scene but Goody Picker. The turned-out pockets, Monk’s aspect, and the few words she caught, told the tale.
“If you please, Squire—if you please, young masters,” she began, dropping a curtsy to us in succession; “the mistress told me to come round here. Stepping up this morning about a job o’ work I’m doing—for Mrs. Hannah, I heard of the losses that have took place, apperiently thefts. So I up and spoke; and Hannah took me to the mistress; and the mistress, who had got her gownd off a-changing of it, listened to what I had to say, and telled me to come round at once to Mr. Todhetley. (Don’t you be frighted, Monk.) Sir, young gentlemen, I think it might have been the magpie.”