“If I may have a tell—” began Joseph, in a tremor of emotion; but his wife cut him short.
“You may not,” she cried sternly. “You come home. Least said soonest mended. Awnly I’m sorry to God as a Cæsar of all the Roosias have come to Postbridge instead of a Christian creature.”
So saying, she clutched Joseph and led him away. But on their silent journey homeward Mr. Hannaford pondered this tremendous circumstance deeply. Then, at his cottage gate, he rallied and spoke his mind.
“We’ve done wrong,” he said, “an’ I be gwaine back again to confess to it afore I sleep this night.”
“We’ve done right. You’ll save your sawl an’ take seventeen shilling an’ sixpence. You’ll be a martyr for conscience, an’ I be proud of ’e.”
“Martyr or no martyr, I knaw a silly auld woman, an’ I ban’t proud of ’e at all, nor of myself neither. Anything in reason I’d do for you, an’ have done ever since I took you; but being put to work in cold blood under Smallridge is more’n I will do for you or for all the Plymouth Brothers that ever bleated hell-fire to a decent man. I won’t go under Smallridge. He’d make me sweat enough to float a ship; an’ at my time of life ’twould shorten my days.”
“You’m gwaine to the Hall, however, for I’ve said it.”
“You be, Joseph Hannaford, as I’m a living woman.”
“No. Not for nobody, Jane! I’ve never crossed you in my life; I’ve knuckled under like a worm for forty-three year, an’ shall henceforward just the same; but wheer Smallridge be in question I’m iron. I go to church next Sunday.”
“I always shall—an’ glad to get back. ’Twas a very silly thing to leave it.”
Mrs. Hannaford put her fowl-like nose within two inches of her husband’s.
“Ban’t no use flustering yourself, my old dear. Every human man’s got one kick in him. An’ kick I’m gwaine to this instant moment.”
He turned and left her with great agility, while she—the foundations of her married life suddenly shaken by this earthquake—stood and stared and gasped up at heaven.
Joseph quickly vanished into the dusk, and soon stood once more before the new vicar. Mr. Budd thereupon raised his eyes from his desk and asked a question without words.
“Well, your honour, ’tis like this here: I’ll go back to church again very next Sunday as falls in.”