“Then I tell lies; thank ye sir,” she said, courtesying.
“No, only I wish you to bear in mind that Richard’s mother is in a very low, nervous state.”
“How can any one passing through this valley o’ tears be any thing else?” interrupted the incorrigible woman.
Her master seemed as though he heard her not. “And if you speak to her in your usual grumpy, disagreeable manner”—she courtesied more deeply than before—“you add to her misery. I am sure your natural kindness of heart will tell you how cruel that would be.”
“Putting live worms on fishing-hooks, or roasting live cockles would be nothing to it,” observed Matty. Now as the bookseller had a piscatorial weakness, was, moreover, fond of roast cockles, and had recently complained that Matty had forgotten his taste—this was a very hard hit; he looked discomforted, upon which Martha rejoiced. He was by no means ready-witted—but he was occasionally readily angered—and replied to the sarcasm with a bitter oath, producing an effect directly contrary to what he intended. Martha quitted the dusty room, as if suffocated by satisfaction, and went grumbling and tittering down stairs.
“It was a Lucky Penny, sure enough,” she said, “that brought my master and your son together.”
“God bless him!”
“Which him?”
“Both, mistress; we hope he will bless what we love best in the world.”
“Ay, indeed, true for you. I heard tell of a man once who was hung through a ‘Lucky Penny.’”