He thought over the organist’s words. How could the money be his? How had he earned the coins? His slow brain gradually solved the problem the money evidently had come from Hope or Monkton, or perhaps from Sartwell. He cursed the three of them, together and separate, and in his rage once more scattered the heap to the floor. The coins whirled hither and thither, at last spinning to rest on the bare boards. Braunt watched them as they lay there glittering in the dim light, his mind ceasing to cogitate on the respective culpability of employers or employed for the state of things under which he suffered. He had formerly thought of Monkton and Hope as purse-proud, haughty capitalists, until he saw their cringing, frightened demeanour when escorted out of the works by the policemen, and since that time he had been endeavouring to reconstruct his ideas concerning them. So, after all, why should he refuse to take money from them if one or other had sent it? He gazed at the coins on the floor, white splotches and yellow points of light, hitching round his chair the better to see them. He had heard that a man might be hypnotized by gazing steadily on a silver piece held in the palm. As Braunt watched the coins intently, he passed his hand swiftly across his brow, concentrating his gaze by half closing his eyes. He leaned forward and downward. Surely they were moving, edging closer to each other, the larger heaps attracting the various atoms of metal, as he remembered, with bewildered brain, was the case with money all the world over, which gave a plausible cause, such as one has in dreams, for the coins creeping together, although what was left of his reason told him that it was all an illusion. The sane and insane sections of his mind struggled for mastery, while Braunt leaned closer and closer over the money, sitting forward now on the very edge of his chair, breathing hard, almost wholly absorbed in the strange movement on the floor, and gradually losing interest in the mental conflict regarding the reality of what his strained, unwinking eyes told him was going on at his feet. At last he noticed that the heap was slowly but perceptibly sliding away from him. All doubts about the geniuneness of what he saw vanished The money was trying to escape.
He sprang to his feet and jumped to the door, placing his back against it.
“Oh, no,” he shouted, “you’re mine, you’re mine!”
Crouching down, never taking his eyes from the coins, he got upon his hands and knees, crawling towards them craftily; then pounced suddenly on the main heap, while the isolated pieces scuttled back to their former positions, pretending they had never shifted their places. He laughed sneeringly at their futile attempts to deceive him, poured the heap into his pocket, and captured each separate coin that remained, by springing upon it. He searched the whole room like some animal, nosing into’ the corners, crouching lower and proceeding more cautiously when he spied a silver or gold piece that had rolled far, chuckling when he seized it and placed it with the others. At last he rose to his feet, slapping his pocket joyously, and making the money jingle. Once erect, the blood rushed to his head, making him dizzy. He staggered, and leaned against the wall, all his hilarity leaving him. The room seemed to swim around him, and he covered his eyes with his hands.
“Ah’m gooin’ mad,” he whispered. “Ah moost ha’ summat ta eat—or drink.”
Braunt staggered through the doorway to the passage and down the stair, out into the open air, which revived him and made him feel the nip of hunger again. Once on Light Street, he turned into the “Rose and Crown,” and asked for a mug of beer. The barman hesitated. The credit of the strikers had long since gone.
“I’d like to see the colour of your money,” he said, gruffly.
“Ah’ve no money. Ah’ll pay thee next week; ah’m goin’ to put a stop ta the strike to-day.”
He brought down his open palm against his trousers pocket to emphasize his poverty, and was startled by the clink of coins. He thrust his hand down into his pocket, and pulled out some silver, gazing at it stupidly.
“Ma word,” he gasped at last, “Ah thought Ah dreamt it!”