The young man put his hands in his trousers pocket and, for answer, turned the whole amount out on the table; three gold pieces, thirteen silver ones and a fourpenny-bit.
The Pig-driver’s countenance presented such a blank wall of astonishment that it was a pity no sufficiently disinterested spectator was present to study it. His errand to Great Masterhouse was proving so unlike anything he had expected that, for once in his life, he felt himself undone. The weapon with which he had hoped to defeat George had been wrested out of his grasp and turned against himself, and he had no other at hand with which to replace it. He glared at the pile of coin, wrath and cupidity fighting within him; the sight of the money made him long to touch it, to handle it and appropriate it, and, at the same time, he hated it because its unlooked-for appearance had robbed him of his revenge. He looked from George to Mrs. Walters and from them to the shining heap between them, and his grin fluctuated and finally died out altogether.
Anne opened a drawer in the dresser and took out a sheet of paper which was lying in it, and a pen and ink.
“Williams will want a receipt,” she remarked, placing them before the Pig-driver.
“I can’t write,” he said, looking at the pen with an expression of malignity. “I’m no hand at it, I tell ’ee. I’ll need to take it along to Abergavenny to my nephew and get it made out.”
“That does not matter,” said she composedly, taking up the quill. “You need only write your name. I know you can do that, for you have signed the paper you showed me.”
She sat down and, in the same precise hand in which she annotated her Bible, wrote: “Received from George Williams in full payment of debt, three pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence.” Adding the date, she pushed it towards Bumpett.
He would have liked to refuse, but he did not dare to do so; he could not risk disobliging a person who, for all he knew, was aware of the systematic law-breaking which was the source of his income.
She watched his unwilling pen forming the signature quite unconscious of the hold she had over him.
“Will you please to keep that for me?” said George as she held out the precious receipt.