Hard Cash

"La, Daddy," said the child, opening her eyes, "I never heeds what I _re-ads:_ I be wrapped up in the spelling. Dear heart, what a sight of long words folks puts in a letter, more than ever drops out of their mouths; which their fingers be longer than their tongues, I do suppose."

Maxley hailed thus information characteristically. "Then we'll say no more about the halfpenny."

At this, Rose raised a lamentable cry, and pearly tears gushed forth.

"There, there!" said Maxley, deprecatingly; "here's two apples for ye; ye can't get them for less: and a halfpenny or a haporth is all one to you, but it is a great odds to me. And apples they rot; halfpence don't."

It was now nine o'clock. The bank did not open till ten; but Maxley went and hung about the door, to be the first applicant.

As he stood there trembling with fear lest the bank should not open at all, he thought hard, and the result was a double resolution: he would have his money out to the last s.h.i.+lling; and, this done, would b.u.t.ton up his pockets and padlock his tongue. It was not his business to take care of his neighbours; nor to blow the Hardies, if they paid him his money on demand. "So not a word to my missus, nor yet to the town-crier," said he.

Ten o'clock struck, and the bank shutters remained up. Five minutes more, and the watcher was in agony. Three minutes more, and up came a boy of sixteen whistling, and took down the shutters with an indifference that amazed him. "Bless your handsome face!" said Maxley with a sigh of relief.

He now summoned up all his firmness, and, having recourse to an art in which these shrewd rustics are supreme, made his face quite inexpressive, and so walked into the bank the every-day Maxley externally, but within a volcano ready to burst if there should be the slightest hesitation to pay him his money.

"Good morning, Mr. Maxley," said young Skinner.

"Good morning, sir."

"What can we do for you?"

"Oh, I'll wait my turn, sir."

"Well, it is your turn now, if you like."

"How much have you got of mine, if you please, sir?"

"Your balance? I'll see. Nine hundred and four pounds."

"Well, sir, then, if _you_ please, I'll draa _that._"

("It has come!" thought Skinner.) "What, going to desert us?" he stammered.

"No," said the other, trembling inwardly, but not moving a facial muscle: "it is only for a day or two, sir."

"Ah! I see, going to make a purchase. By-the-bye, I believe Mr. Hardie means to offer you some grounds he is buying outside the town: will that suit your book?"

"I dare say it will, sir."

"Then perhaps you will wait till our governor comes in?"

"I have no objection."

"He won't be long. Fine weather for the gardens, Mr. Maxley."

"Moderate, sir. I'll take my money if you please. Counting it out, that will help pa.s.s the time till Muster Hardie comes. You han't made away with it?"

"What d'ye mean, sir?"

"Hardies bain't turned thieves, be they?"

"Are you mad or intoxicated, Mr. Maxley?"

'Neither, sir; but I wants my own, and I wool have it too: so

"Henry, score James Maxley's name off the books," said Skinner with cool dignity. But when he had said this, he was at his wits' end: there were not nine hundred pounds of hard cash in the bank, nor anything like it.

CHAPTER XVI

SKINNER--called "young" because he had once had a father on the premises--was the mole-catcher. The feelings with which he had now for some months watched his master grubbing were curiously mingled. There was the grim sense of superiority every successful detective feels as he sees the watched one working away unconscious of the eye that is on him; but this was more than balanced by a long habit of obsequious reverence.

When A. has been looking up to B. for thirty years, he cannot look down on him all of a sudden, merely because he catches him falsifying accounts. Why, Man is a cooking animal: bankrupt Man especially.

And then Richard Hardie overpowered Skinner's senses: he was Dignity in person: he was six feet two, and always wore a black surtout b.u.t.toned high, and a hat with a brim a little broader than his neighbours', yet not broad enough to be eccentric or slang. He moved down the street touching his hat--while other hats were lifted high to him--a walking volume of cash. And when he took off this ebon crown and sat in the bank parlour, he gained in appearance more than he lost; for then his whole head was seen, long, calm, majestic: that senatorial front and furrowed face overawed all comers. Even the little sharp-faced clerk would stand and peep at it, utterly puzzled between what he knew and what he eyed: nor could he look at that head and face without excusing them. What a lot of money they must have sunk before they came down to fabricating a balance-sheet!

And by-and-bye custom somewhat blunted his sense of the dishonesty, and he began to criticise the thing arithmetically instead of morally. That view once admitted, he was charmed with the ability and subtlety of his dignified sharper; and so the mole-catcher began gradually, but effectually, to be corrupted by the mole. He who watches a dishonest process and does not stop it, is half way towards conniving: who connives, is half way towards abetting.

The next thing was, Skinner felt mortified at his master not trusting him. Did he think old Bob Skinner's son would blow on Hardie after all these years?

This rankled a little, and set him to console himself by admiring his own cleverness in penetrating this great distrustful man. Now of all sentiments, Vanity is the most restless and the surest to peep out.

Skinner was no sooner inflated than his demure obsequious manner underwent a certain change: slight and occasional only; but Hardie was a subtle man, and the perilous path he was treading made him wonderfully watchful, suspicious, and sagacious. He said to himself, "What has come to Skinner? I must know." So he quietly watched his watcher; and soon satisfied himself he suspected something amiss. From that hour Skinner was a doomed clerk.

It was two o'clock: Hardie had just arrived, and sat in the parlour, Cato-like, and cooking.

Skinner was in high spirits: it was owing to his presence of mind the bank had not been broken some hours ago by Maxley. So now, while concluding his work, he was enjoying by antic.i.p.ation his employer's grat.i.tude. "He can't hold aloof after this," said Skinner; "he must honour me with his confidence. And I will deserve it. I do deserve it."

A grave, calm, pa.s.sionless voice invited him into the parlour.

He descended from his desk and went in, swelling with demure complacency.

He found Mr. Hardie seated garbling his accounts with surpa.s.sing dignity. The great man handed him an envelope, and cooked majestic on. A wave of that imperial hand, and Skinner had mingled with the past.

For know that the envelope contained three things: a cheque for a month's wages; a character; and a dismissal, very polite and equally peremptory.

Skinner stood paralysed: the complacency died out of his face, and rueful wonder came instead. It was some time before he could utter a word: at last he faltered, "Turn me away, sir? turn away Noah Skinner?

Your father would never have said such a word to _my_ father." Skinner uttered this his first remonstrance in a voice trembling with awe, but gathered courage when he found he had done it, yet lived.

Mr. Hardie evaded his expostulation by a very simple means: he made no reply, but continued his work, dignified as Brutus, inexorable as Fate, cool as Cuc.u.mber.

Skinner's anger began to rise, he watched Mr. Hardie in silence, and said to himself, "Curse you! you were born without a heart!"

He waited, however, for some sign of relenting, and, hoping for it the water came into his own eyes. But Hardie was impa.s.sive as ice.

Then the little clerk, mortified to the core as well as wounded, ground his teeth and drew a little nearer to this incarnate Arithmetic, and said with an excess of obsequiousness, "Will you condescend to give me a reason for turning me away all in a moment after five-and-thirty years'

faithful services?"