"Mammy, mammy!—good old woman speaks you," said the eager child, striving to arouse his mother's attention, and to call off her mind from the intense conflict which seemed to have paralysed her consciousness.
"Ay, ay," observed the sweep, "Dame Thrumpkinson is a thrifty, sensible body: let us put it, now, to her, as a reasonable matter, and see if she does not say I speak fair."
The group drew near the dame's door, and the man recounted the terms of his proposal with a self-complacent emphasis which indicated that he believed the dame, being a well-reputed tradeswoman, would assent at once to the advisableness of his scheme, and assist him in its immediate accomplishment.
"Now, what d'ye think, dame?" he said in conclusion; "d'ye not think that I speak fair?"
"Think!" answered the aged woman, fixing her keen grey eyes upon the trafficker with an expression which withered his hopes in a moment;—"think!—why I think it would be a sinful shame to soil that bairn's pratty face wi' soot; and I think, beside, that thou hast so little of a man in thee, to wring a widowed-woman's heart by tempting her to barter the body and soul of her own bairn for gold, that if I were twenty years younger, I would shake thy liver in thee for what thou hast said to her."
The man's countenance fell, and he looked, for a moment, as if about to return an answer of abuse; but the dame kept her keen eye bent unblenchingly upon him;—and it seemed as if his courage failed, for he put up the guineas hastily into his purse, and turned from the spot, without daring to attempt an answer, followed by the two diminutive slaves whose hard lot it was to call him "Master."
"Ah, poor woman!" exclaimed Dame Deborah to the weeping and speechless mother;—"what a sorry sight it would have been to see you take yon hard-hearted rascal's money, while this poor faytherless innocent trudged away with a bag o' soot on his feeble back! No, no, it isn't come to that, nayther," she continued, vacating her arm-chair, and gently forcing the distressed woman into it; "sit thee down, poor heart! the bairn shall not want a friend, if aught should ail thee. I'll take care of him myself, if God Almighty should take thee away as well as his poor fayther."
"God bless you, dame!" sobbed the cheered mother, clasping her hands, and bursting anew into tears, which were now tears of joy.
"God bless good old woman!" shouted the little fellow, with the real heaven of guileless childhood in his face.
"My poor child may soon need your goodness, kind dame," rejoined the melancholy mother, turning very deadly pale,—"for I feel I am not long for this world: my strength is nearly gone."