The old man rubbed his knees nervously and bent his head, and deep furrows gathered on his brow. ‘Small, eh? Fifteen shillings a week, small? Why, Rachel, you talk as though you knew nothing of this hard-working world. How many clerks are there in this old city who would go down on their knees and thank Armytage and Company for fifteen shillings a week!’
‘Many—very many,’ said the girl sorrowfully. ‘I know that too well. But, grandfather, not one like you—not one who has served a great House for more than fifty years.’ She placed her hand upon the long lean hand of her grandfather. ‘No,’ she continued; ‘not so long as you have. And,’ she added, ‘surely not so faithfully? The House of Armytage and Company—I have often heard you say—place every confidence in you as their head-cashier. Thousands and thousands of pounds in the course of the year pass through your hands: piles of bank-notes, bags and bags of bright sovereigns, have been paid by you into the bank’——
‘Ay, ay!’ cried the old man, looking straight before him, as though at a vision—‘ay, ay! Bright sovereigns—bags and bags of them—bags and bags of bright sovereigns!—ah! how they shine!’ While speaking, he rose from his seat, rubbing his hands slowly together and hugging himself, as he had done on his way through the dark street. He began to pace the room, still staring at the vision, and muttering: ‘Ay, ay! how they shine!’
Rachel, watching him with a wondering expression, said in a low voice, as if speaking aloud her thoughts rather than addressing her grandfather: ‘What a blessing, if only some of those shining sovereigns were ours!’
The old man stopped suddenly, staggering as though he had received a blow, and looked fixedly at the girl. ‘What can have put that idea into your head?’
Rachel hung her pretty head as she replied: ‘I want them, grandfather, for you! I want to see you placed at your ease.’
The old man was silent. His eyes remained for a moment bent upon the girl’s face; then he sat down before the fire, and gradually seemed to fall back into his thoughtful mood, his face wrinkling more deeply, and the nervous movements of his hands answering to the constant plodding of his brain.
Rachel now rose from her seat to clear the table, moving silently about the room. When she had finished, she seated herself at her grandfather’s feet, upon the threadbare patch of carpet before the hearth, and raising her eyes to his face, she said: ‘You are not angry with me, grandfather, for speaking my mind?’
The old man placed his hand tenderly upon the girl’s head. ‘No, my child—no. There is nothing in your words to make me angry. But you know little of the world. You think that we are poor. You do not know, Rachel, what poverty is. Does,’ he added, with a sudden glance at the girl’s face—‘does starvation threaten us?’
‘Why, no, grandfather.’