“Yes, all, I think, sir.”
“Bank of England?” He poked at her skirts with his stick. “Bank of England, eh? Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, so far as I can see.”
“Ay, ay. Well, count ’em! And mind what you are doing, girl!”
Clement did not know whether to smile or to be angry, but a moment later he felt no bent towards either. For with a certain dignity, “I ha’ been deceived once,” the Squire continued. “I ha’ signed once and paid for it. I’m in the dark. But I don’t act i’ the dark again. If I can’t trust my own flesh and blood, I’ll not trust strangers. No, no! I don’t know as there’s any one I can trust.”
“I quite understand, sir,” Clement said—though it was the last thing he had had it in his mind to say a moment earlier.
“I don’t mind whether you understand or not,” the Squire retorted. “Ha’ you done, girl?” after an interval of silence.
“Not quite, sir. I have five heaps of ten.”
“Well, well, get on. We are keeping the young man.”
He spoke as he would have spoken of any young man in a shop, and Clement winced, and Josina knew that he winced and she reddened. But she went on with her work. “There are sixty-one, sir,” she said. “That makes——”