The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“No more a thief than you were before. Rather less, I hope. But do you think it would have been any better for you if you hadn’t lost it, and had got some good of it, as you say?”

She was silent yet again.

“If you hadn’t lost it you would most likely have been a great deal worse for it than you are—a more wicked woman altogether.”

“I’m not a wicked woman.”

“It is wicked to steal, is it not?”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“How did you come by it, then?”

“I found it.”

“Did you try to find out the owner?”

“No. I knew whose it was.”

“Then it was very wicked not to return it. And I say again, that if you had not lost the sovereign you would have been most likely a more wicked woman than you are.”

“It was very hard to lose it. I could have given it back. And then I wouldn’t have lost my character as I have done this day.”

“Yes, you could; but I doubt if you would.”

“I would.”

“Now, if you had it, you are sure you would give it back?”

“Yes, that I would,” she said, looking me so full in the face that I was sure she meant it.

“How would you give it back? Would you get your husband to take it?”

“No; I wouldn’t trust him.”

“With the story, you mean I You do not wish to imply that he would not restore it?”

“I don’t mean that. He would do what I told him.”

“How would you return it, then?”

“I should make a parcel of it, and send it.”

“Without saying anything about it?”

“Yes. Where’s the good? The man would have his own.”

“No, he would not. He has a right to your confession, for you have wronged him. That would never do.”

“You are too hard upon me,” she said, beginning to weep angrily.

“Do you want to get the weight of this sin off your mind?” I said.

“Of course I do. I am going to die. O dear! O dear!”

“Then that is just what I want to help you in. You must confess, or the weight of it will stick there.”

“But, if I confess, I shall be expected to pay it back?”

“Of course. That is only reasonable.”

“But I haven’t got it, I tell you. I have lost it.”

“Have you not a sovereign in your possession?”

“No, not one.”

“Can’t you ask your husband to let you have one?”

“There! I knew it was no use. I knew you would only make matters worse. I do wish I had never seen that wicked money.”

“You ought not to abuse the money; it was not wicked. You ought to wish that you had returned it. But that is no use; the thing is to return it now. Has your husband got a sovereign?”

“No. He may ha’ got one since I be laid up. But I never can tell him about it; and I should be main sorry to spend one of his hard earning in that way, poor man.”

“Well, I’ll tell him, and we’ll manage it somehow.”

I thought for a few moments she would break out in opposition; but she hid her face with the sheet instead, and burst into a great weeping.

I took this as a permission to do as I had said, and went to the room-door and called her husband. He came, looking scared. His wife did not look up, but lay weeping. I hoped much for her and him too from this humiliation before him, for I had little doubt she needed it.

“Your wife, poor woman,” I said, “is in great distress because—I do not know when or how—she picked up a sovereign that did not belong to her, and, instead of returning, put it away somewhere and lost it. This is what is making her so miserable.”

“Deary me!” said Stokes, in the tone with which he would have spoken to a sick child; and going up to his wife, he sought to draw down the sheet from her face, apparently that he might kiss her; but she kept tight hold of it, and he could not. “Deary me!” he went on; “we’ll soon put that all to rights. When was it, Jane, that you found it?”

“When we wanted so to have a pig of our own; and I thought I could soon return it,” she sobbed from under the sheet.

“Deary me! Ten years ago! Where did you find it, old woman?”

“I saw Squire Tresham drop it, as he paid me for some ginger-beer he got for some ladies that was with him. I do believe I should ha’ given it back at the time; but he made faces at the ginger-beer, and said it was very nasty; and I thought, well, I would punish him for it.”

“You see it was your temper that made a thief of you, then,” I said.

“My old man won’t be so hard on me as you, sir. I wish I had told him first.”

“I would wish that too,” I said, “were it not that I am afraid you might have persuaded him to be silent about it, and so have made him miserable and wicked too. But now, Stokes, what is to be done? This money must be paid. Have you got it?”

The poor man looked blank.