“But would not somebody you work for—or the priest—?” began Bertie.
“Passon don’t do nowt for us,—my man’s a Methody; and at brick-field they don’t mind us; if we be there, well an’ good,—we work and get paid; and if we isn’t there, well—some un else is. That’s all.” Then she sank back, gasping.
Bertie stood woe-begone and perplexed.
“Did you say my shoes would sell?” he murmured, very miserably, his mind going back to the history of St. Martin and the cloak.
Dick brightened up at once.
“Master, I’ll get three shillin’ on ’em, maybe more, down in village yonder.”
“You mus’n’t take the little gemman’s things,” murmured the mother, feebly; but faintness was stealing on her, and darkness closing over her sight.
“Three shillings!” said Bertie, who knew very little of the value of shillings; “that seems very little! I think they cost sovereigns. Could you get a loaf of bread with three shillings?”
“Gu-r-r-r!” grinned Dick, and Bertie understood that the guttural sound meant assent and rapture.
“But I cannot walk without shoes.”