“Bravo, our John Ridd!” he answered; “fools will be fools till the end of the chapter; and I might be as big a one, if I were in thy shoes, John. Nevertheless, in the name of God, don’t let that helpless child go about with a thing worth half the county on her.”
“She is worth all the county herself,” said I, “and all England put together; but she has nothing worth half a rick of hay upon her; for the ring I gave her cost only,”—and here I stopped, for mother was looking, and I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though she had tried fifty times to find out.
“Tush, the ring!” Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me: “I would never have stopped a man for that. But the necklace, you great oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle Ben’s fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton.”
“What,” said I, “that common glass thing, which she has had from her childhood!”
“Glass indeed! They are the finest brilliants ever I set eyes on; and I have handled a good many.”
“Surely,” cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom’s own cheeks with excitement, “you must be wrong, or the young mistress would herself have known it.”
I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna “the young mistress”; it was not done for the sake of her diamonds, whether they were glass or not; but because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus, a man of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in calling a lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as in his general tone, which displayed no deference. He might have been used to the quality, in the way of stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with them; but he never had met a high lady before, in equality, and upon virtue; and we both felt that he ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal more humbly than he had even tried to do.
“Trust me,” answered Tom, in his loftiest manner, which Annie said was “so noble,” but which seemed to me rather flashy, “trust me, good mother, and simple John, for knowing brilliants, when I see them. I would have stopped an eight-horse coach, with four carabined outriders, for such a booty as that. But alas, those days are over; those were days worth living in. Ah, I never shall know the like again. How fine it was by moonlight!”
“Master Faggus,” began my mother, with a manner of some dignity, such as she could sometimes use, by right of her integrity, and thorough kindness to everyone, “this is not the tone in which you have hitherto spoken to me about your former pursuits and life, I fear that the spirits”—but here she stopped, because the spirits were her own, and Tom was our visitor—“what I mean, Master Faggus, is this: you have won my daughter’s heart somehow; and you won my consent to the matter through your honest sorrow, and manly undertaking to lead a different life, and touch no property but your own. Annie is my eldest daughter, and the child of a most upright man. I love her best of all on earth, next to my boy John here”—here mother gave me a mighty squeeze, to be sure that she would have me at least—“and I will not risk my Annie’s life with a man who yearns for the highway.”
Having made this very long speech (for her), mother came home upon my shoulder, and wept so that (but for heeding her) I would have taken Tom by the nose, and thrown him, and Winnie after him, over our farmyard gate. For I am violent when roused; and freely hereby acknowledge it; though even my enemies will own that it takes a great deal to rouse me. But I do consider the grief and tears (when justly caused) of my dearest friends, to be a great deal to rouse me.
XLVII
Jeremy in Danger
Nothing very long abides, as the greatest of all writers (in whose extent I am forever lost in raptured wonder, and yet forever quite at home, as if his heart were mine, although his brains so different), in a word as Mr. William Shakespeare, in every one of his works insists, with a humoured melancholy. And if my journey to London led to nothing else of advancement, it took me a hundred years in front of what I might else have been, by the most simple accident.
Two women were scolding one another across the road, very violently, both from upstair windows; and I in my hurry for quiet life, and not knowing what might come down upon me, quickened my step for the nearest corner. But suddenly something fell on my head; and at first I was afraid to look, especially as it weighed heavily. But hearing no breakage of ware, and only the other scold laughing heartily, I turned me about and espied a book, which one had cast at the other, hoping to break her window. So I took the book, and tendered it at the door of the house from which it had fallen; but the watchman came along just then, and the man at the door declared that it never came from their house, and begged me to say no more. This I promised readily, never wishing to make mischief; and I said, “Good sir, now take the book; I will go on to my business.” But he answered that he would do no such thing; for the book alone, being hurled so hard, would convict his people of a lewd assault; and he begged me, if I would do a good turn, to put the book under my coat and go. And so I did:
