“Owd ileven shilns ninpens bi jane bull for last 5 munth. can’t get it. shes ded. ateen forty 4.”
“Owd from Gorgewillems. Rent. 3 pownd thirteen and fore. August forty 2.”
This last document also bore George’s sprawling signature, and at the bottom was added, “Made turms with im. James Bumpett.”
The treasure was found, and the Pig-driver crammed the other papers back and shut down the lid. Then he took off his hat and put it on again, a habit he had when under emotion; he was very happy. He went below to a room at the back of the shop, and sat down with his nephew to a comfortable meal, for they lived well. When they had finished he took out the paper and, having raked a pair of rusty scissors from the back of a drawer, he cut off the lower part of the page and dropped it into the fire. It did not blaze but smouldered, the words “Made turms with im” standing out in an orange glow on their blackened background. He went to bed feeling ten years younger.
He was in his best spirits as he drove out of Abergavenny next morning with the precious document in his hand, for the sight of it gave him such pleasure that he did not like to put it in his pocket, but held it clasped tightly until he came within sight of the grey roof of Great Masterhouse.
He had never yet had any dealings with Mrs. Walters, but it was his intention to ask to see her; he had heard that she was a person of strict views, and he hoped to say a few words about George which he had no doubt would make her turn him out of the place. The virulent old man longed to see him begging from door to door. He meant to approach her in the interests of abstract virtue, and to warn her against employing a person whom he knew to be a thief and an evil-doer, one who would corrupt his fellow-servants, and in all probability go off some day of his own accord with as much of her portable property as he could carry. He felt sure that a pious woman such as she was would see the rightness of putting Williams to the door. Though he knew very well that, for reasons of his own, he could not prove his charges, he trusted that her severity would recognize the need of ridding her house of doubtful characters. It was in this hope that he drove into the back yard of the farm.
Anne Walters was sitting in the kitchen with some knitting in her hand, superintending the work of a clumsy girl of fourteen who was washing a whole regiment of delf mugs. They were a sight to breed envy in a collector of modern days, with their patterns and devices of red roses, doggerel verses, and figures of John Barleycorn, Toby Philpott, and other jocund personalities, but she cared little for them, and kept them hidden away in a cupboard where no eye but that of the strolling spider could espy their quaint beauties. The money she had promised to lend Williams had been given him on the previous evening, and she had agreed to stop a portion of his weekly wages until the debt should expire. She was sure that she had done right in helping him, and it was a pleasant thought in her mind as Nannie’s face peered in at the kitchen door. Nannie always peered. Though she had been twenty years and more at Great Masterhouse, she still kept the demeanour of an intruder, and her weather-beaten face came stealthily round the lintel as though its presence were an unlawful act.
“The Pig-driver’s in the yard, ma’am, wanting to see you on business.”
“The Pig-driver?”
Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows.