Bessie Costrell | Page 8

at all.
Isaac listened to her at first with amazement, then sulkily. She had talked to him often certainly about John's money, but it had made little impression on his dreamer's sense. And now her demand struck him disagreeably.
He didn't want the worrit of other people's money, he said. Let them as owned it keep it; filthy lucre was a snare to all as had to do with it; and it would only bring a mischief to have it in the house.
After a few more of these objections, Bessie lost her temper. She broke into a torrent of angry arguments and reproaches, mainly turning, it seemed, upon a recent visit to the house of Isaac's eldest son. The drunken ne'er-do-weel had given Bessie much to put up with. Oh yes!--she was to be plagued out of her life by Isaac's belongings, and he wouldn't do a pin's worth for her. Just let him see next time, that was all.
Isaac smoked vigorously through it all. But she was hammering on a sore point.
"Oh, it's just like yer!" Bessie flung at him at last in desperation. "You're allus the same--a mean-spirited feller, stannin' in your children's way! 'Ow do you know who old John's going to leave his money to? 'Ow do you know as he wouldn't leave it to them poor innercents"--she waved her hand tragically towards the children playing in the road--"if we was just a bit nice and friendly with him now 'ee's gettin' old? But you don't care, not you!--one 'ud think yer were made o' money--an' that little un there not got the right use of his legs!"
She pointed, half crying, to the second boy, who had already shown signs of hip disease.
Isaac still smoked, but he was troubled in his mind. A vague presentiment held him, but the pressure brought to bear upon him was strong.
"I tell yer the lock isn't a good 'un!" he said, suddenly removing his pipe.
Bessie stopped instantly in the middle of another tirade. She was leaning against the door, arms akimbo, eyes alternately wet and flaming.
"Then, if it isn't," she said, with a triumphant change of tone, "I'll soon get Flack to see to it--it's nobbut a step. I'll run up after supper."
Flack was the village carpenter.
"An' there's mother's old box as takes up the cupboard," continued Isaac gruffly.
Bessie burst out laughing.
"Oh! yer old silly," she said. "As if they couldn't stand one top o' the t'other. Now, do just go, Isaac--there's a lovey! 'Ee's waitin' for yer. Whatever did make yer so contrairy? Of course I didn't mean nothin' I said--an' I don't mind Timothy, nor nothin'."
Still he did not move.
"Then I s'pose yer want everybody in the village to know?" he said with sarcasm.
Bessie was taken aback.
"No--I--don't--" she said undecidedly--"I don't know what yer mean."
"You go back and tell John as I'll come when it's dark, an', if he's not a stupid, he won't want me to come afore."
Bessie understood and acquiesced. She ran back with her message to John.
At half-past eight, when it had grown almost dark, Isaac descended the hill. John opened the door to his knock.
"Good evenin', Isaac. Yer'll take it, will yer?"
"If you can't do nothin' better with it," said Isaac, unwillingly. "But in gineral I'm not partial on keeping other folk's money."
John liked him all the better for his reluctance.
"It'll give yer no trouble," he said. "You lock it up, an' it'll be all safe. Now, will yer lend a hand?"
Isaac stepped to the door, looked up the lane, and saw that all was quiet. Then he came back, and the two men raised the box.
As they crossed the threshold, however, the door of the next cottage--which belonged to Watson, the policeman--opened suddenly. John, in his excitement, was so startled that he almost dropped his end of the box.
"Why, Bolderfield," said Watson's cheery voice, "what have you got there? Do you want a hand?"
"No, I don't--thank yer kindly," said John in agitation. "An', if you please, Muster Watson, don't yer say nothin' to nobody."
The burly policeman looked from John to Isaac, then at the box. John's hoard was notorious, and the officer of the law understood.
"Lor' bless yer," he said, with a laugh, "I'm safe. Well, good evenin' to yer, if I can't be of any assistance."
And he went off on his beat.
The two men carried the box up the hill. It was in itself a heavy, old-fashioned affair, strengthened and bottomed with iron. Isaac wondered whether the weight of it were due more to the box or to the money. But he said nothing. He had no idea how much John might have saved, and would not have asked him the direct question for the world. John's own way of talking about his wealth was curiously contradictory. His "money" was rarely out of his