"I would rather take money than trade just now."
Mrs. Rushmere drew her purse from her pocket; it was a heavy one, as she was her own banker, and it generally contained all the money which she received for the produce of the dairy.
Dorothy, who was standing behind her chair, could not help being struck with the eager hungry glance with which the woman eyed the glittering gold and silver coins, and her face became more dark and repulsive than ever.
"Wife," put in the farmer, "doan't be a fule. There be plenty o' rabbit and hare skins in the shed. If she doan't trade for them, let her things bide in her basket. It isn't fair o' the woman to take silver o' us an' skins of t'other folk."
"You farmers are so cruelly stingy," said the woman angrily, "you won't let a body live, and wheat up to five pounds the quarter. I think I saw you in the market, master. You made a better bargain for your grain than exchanging it for old moth-eaten rabbit skins."
Dorothy again caught the furtive glance of the woman's evil eyes, and recoiled from it as if she had trodden upon a snake.
After a great deal of chaffering and bargaining for various articles, the tramp consented to receive in payment some fine woollen yarn that dangled from the beams, observing, "that she must turn a penny somehow." She then put aside the basket, and sat down, to discuss the bread and cheese, and tankard of home-brewed ale, that Dorothy placed on the table for her supper.
"You found the roads bad," said Rushmere, refilling his pipe.
"Up to the top of my boots," and the woman lifted up her large foot, which was cased in a heavy highlow, thickly studded with iron nails. "I was near mired, at the lower end of the heath, and began to think I would have to stay there all night. Who would have expected to step into a mud-hole during such a hard frost as this?"