“I cannot give you this,” she said. “But I’ll give you its value, if you will bring me to Walterson.”
“No, no, give it me,” he whimpered, grimacing at her and making feeble clutches in the air. “Give it me!”
“I cannot, I say,” she repeated. “It was my mother’s, and I cannot part with it. But if,” she continued patiently, “you will do what I ask I will give you its value, old man, another day.”
“Give now!” he retorted. “Give now!” And leering with childish cunning, “Trust the day and greet the morrow! Groats in pouch ne’er yet brought sorrow! Na, na, Hinkson, old Hinkson trusts nobody. Give it me now, lass! And I—I know what I know.” And in a cracked and quavering voice, swaying himself to the measure,
“It is an old saying
That few words are best,
And he that says little
Shall live most at rest.
And I by my gossips
Do find it right so,