"Yes," answered Jonas, "interest while 'tis running."

"That's if you don't get her?"

"No, Bill; that's if I do get her."

White considered. 'Twas very big money, of course, but he tried for a bit more.

"You must remember that when I throw her over I'm a disgraced man, Jo."

"I wouldn't say that. 'Twill be a shadow on your name for a minute, but such things fall out every day and be very quickly forgot. Milly's the only one that matters and I don't think you're the best partner in the world for her, else I'd never have touched the subject. But if you use your cleverness and put it to her that 'tis undignified for you both to go on waiting for ever, she'll very likely see it."

"She might, or again she mightn't."

"She would," declared Jonas. "I ain't watched you and her for a year for nothing. This ain't going to be the shattering wrench for her you might think, William."

White knew that very well, but dwelt on his own downfall, and loss. "Make it five hundred--win or lose," he said at last, "and I'll oblige you."

And Jonas Bird agreed instantly, for at the bottom of his heart he weren't feeling it no wildgoose chase for him; because, though a simple man in some ways, he didn't lack caution, and he'd unfolded his feelings pretty oft to Milly, speaking, of course, in general terms; and he well knew that she felt high respect for his character and opinions and good position.

Then William spoke.

"If you'd like it in writing, you can have it," he said, "but for my part I trust you, and I doubt not you trust me, and I'm inclined to think the less that be put down on paper about it, the better. 'Tis a deed of darkness, in a manner of speaking, and written doc.u.ments have often brought disasters with 'em afterwards, so us had best to trust each other and sign nought." Jonas agreed to this most emphatic and then they parted.

But it weren't twenty-four hours later before the carpenter felt the deed was afoot, for he soon saw that Milly had got a weight on her mind. She said nought, however, till a week was past and then told Jonas, confidential, that she savoured something in the air.

"There's some people can smell rain," she said, "and others, if they go in a churchyard, know to a foot when they be walking over their own future graves; and though I'm not one to meet trouble half-way, it's borne in on me that I be going to face changes afore long."

"In what direction?" asked Jonas, cunning as a serpent. "G.o.d send you don't mean that William be going to get his rise and take you away?"

"I do not," she said. "Quite the contrary. I mean that William be going to change his mind about me."

"And would you call that meeting trouble exactly, or contrariwise?" asked Bird.

"Well," she answered. "Between you and me, I may say that I shall doubtless get over it; but I'm a good bit hurt, because it had got to be an understood thing and I little like changes. But there it is: the man's getting restless and be pruning his wings for flight if I know him."

"'Tis beyond belief that any living man should want to fly from you,"

declared Jonas. "I wouldn't come between lovers for a bag of gold; but in a case like this, feeling for you as I always have done since you kept your promise to Sarah with such amazing perfection--feeling that, if you say the word, I'll talk to William White as no man yet have talked to him."

"Do nothing," she said. "Let nature take its course with William; and if it takes him away from me, so be it. I can very well endure to part from the man and, so like as not, when I'm satisfied that things are so, I shall tell him I understand, and give him his freedom."

"Such largeness of mind I never heard tell about in a woman," answered Jonas.

And six weeks later William and Milly were cut loose, without any fuss on her part but to the undying amazement of Thorpe-Michael. And then Jonas paid his first instalment at dead of night and got a receipt for the same.

'Twas after that the carpenter's anxieties began. He'd hoped that Milly would be a lot cast down by this reverse and that he'd fill the gap and comfort her and support her through the sad affair; but she didn't want no support. In fact she talked most sensible about being jilted and confessed that it might be all for the best in the long run. "Nought happens save by the will of Heaven," she said, "and I can look at it with a good conscience which be a tower of strength, and I can even go so far as to tell myself that Daisy Newte may make a better wife for Bill than me; for that's where his eyes are turning."

"Daisy Newte! Good G.o.d--the blindness of the bachelor male!" swore Jonas.

And from that day forward he was at her--respectful, but unsleeping.

His fear was that, now she stood free of a man, her nice feeling would take her from under his roof and of course there was plenty of women who pointed this out to Milly Ba.s.sett; but in her fine way she despised the mind that thinks evil for choice and said 'twas a pity that good thoughts was not put into the human heart instead of bad ones.

She said: "If my character can't rise above Thorpe-Michael, 'tis pity. And the man, or woman, who could whisper a bad thought against Jonas Bird be beneath my notice and his'n."

And then he offered for her and she took him; and then, after that, of course, she left his home till the wedding.

And the carpenter's childer yowled their heads off when she went, and couldn't very easy be made to understand that Milly was only away for a few weeks and would soon be back to bide with 'em. William tried hard to get a bit more cash out of Jonas when he heard the glad news; but, though feeling kindly to heaven above and earth beneath after his wonnerful triumph, Milly's future husband felt that with his new calls and doing up his home and buying poultry for his wife--birds being a thing she doted on--that William must be content. He paid another fifty down and made it clear that no more must be counted on for six months. And the horseman said no more at that time, being a good bit occupied with Daisy Newte by then. For she was walking with him and very near won. And afore Christmas, he'd got her.

All went well and everybody wished Jonas joy and Milly luck. 'Twas thought a very reasonable match, for Bird stood high in the public esteem and the folk had long since felt that Milly might do much better than William. But they admired her honesty and the way she'd stuck to him and felt she'd been richly rewarded. In fact Jonas and Milly were a devoted pair and not a cloud darkened their wedded life for a good few years.

Then came the fatal affair of the bargain, and though pretty easy about the instalments till he'd got three children of his own, from that time forth there's no doubt William began to fret Jonas cruel. Because, you see, the crafty toad had bargained for interest running, and Jonas, not understanding these things and guessing such matters was always five per centum and no more, had agreed to pay it. But this is where William got the better of him, for White went to a friend of his at Dartmouth and between them they figured up a very clever scheme which caused Jonas a lot of inconvenience.

They explained to him the wonderful ways of compound interest, and though he couldn't see 'em, he had to feel 'em, and he found, as time pa.s.sed, that far from paying off William's five hundred, do what he might the money still piled up against him. There was complications, too, for of course he had no other secret than this from his wife, and Milly read him like a book, and after they was wed four years, Jo reached a pitch when he couldn't conceal his anguish. For presently, puzzling over the figures for the hundredth time, he came to the fearful conclusion that he'd already paid William over five hundred pounds, and yet, if White was to be trusted, there was three figures of money still owing to him by compound interest.

He had it out with William the next time he got him alone; but the horseman declared himself as a good bit surprised that a little thing like cash should fret such a happy and prosperous creature as Jonas Bird.

"Good powers!" he said, "haven't you found out that Milly was worth all the money in the Bank of England? And then to grouse because you bain't out of debt for her! h.e.l.l!" said William White, "you needn't think I wouldn't be off the bargain to-morrow and gladly pay you all the money twice over for Milly back again!"

Because, you see, his Daisy, though a nice girl up to a point, was very human in some things and had failed, both as a wife and a mother, owing to her fatal fondness for liquid refreshment. 'Twas a family weakness which had been kept out of William's knowledge while he was courting; but marriage and the cares of childer and so on, had woke a thirst in Daisy that made her difficult. So William weren't in a mood to lighten up for Jonas, and he said that figures can't lie and the loan must run its appointed course if it took ten years to do so. He'd got the whip-hand, no doubt, because it weren't a subject for any other ear, though Jonas, in his despair, did once think of going to parson with it. But the thought of laying bare the past and seeing parson's scorn was more than he could face, and he hid it up.

At last, however, he felt the tax past bearing, for it was making an old man of him; and then he braced himself and called on his Maker to see him through and done the wisest thing that ever he had done. In a word, he told Milly. He told her when they'd gone to bed one Christmas night and unbosomed his troubled mind. He'd paid William another fifty only the week night before and, as he presently confessed to Milly, 'twas the last straw that broke his back and sent him to throw himself on her mercy.

He bade her list, then told the tale from the beginning, told it honest without straining truth in any particular. And Milly listened and said not a word till he was done.

"So there it is," finished Jonas--"a choice of evils for me 'twixt stripping up the past afore your eyes and letting William bleed me to my dying day seemingly. And knowing you, I reckoned the wisest thing was to come to you with the naked tale and hide naught. William says figures can't lie, and he may or may not be right, but I've got it fixed in my mind that he's making 'em lie; and, be it as it will, he's had enough, and I'm properly sick of putting big money in his pocket instead of yours, where all that is mine belongs by right."

Milly kept silent a bit, but he knew by her calm breathing that she weren't going to throw the house out of windows over it, or make a scene.

In fact, she'd never been known to make a scene in all her life and weren't likely to begin now.

She spoke at last.

"There's some women would be a good bit put about to hear these things, Jo," she said, and he granted the truth of it.

"I can't call home one but yourself as wouldn't," he said, "but you are the top flower in the basket of women at Thorpe-Michael, and have got intellects and the wit to see 'twas nothing but my great pa.s.sion for you as led me into this mess. And though business is business and no man can ever say I drew back in a bargain, yet I've got a good bit enraged with William lately, and I feel 'tis more'n time this here compounded interest come to an end."

"How much have he had?" asked Milly, and Jonas gave her the figures, which was branded in letters of fire on his mind, so to say.

"Five hundred and seventy-eight," he said, "and still he's got the front to swear I owe him near two more hundred."

"I've puzzled sometimes where your money was going," she told him, "but, knowing you, I well understood 'twas safe."

"Thank G.o.d you came to the task with your usual high courage and sense,"

he answered. "And thank G.o.d, also, that you think none the worse of me.

And don't you imagine I grudge the money itself. On the low level of cash you was worth the Mint of England ten times over; but the question afore me is, looking at my deal with William as a money bargain between man and man, whether he ain't going a bit over and beyond doing me in the eye."

"I reckon he is," said Milly. "Five hundred and seventy-eight's enough, Jo, and I'm proud, in a manner of speaking, you could rise it. I'm very fortunate in having you for a husband, because the man wasn't born to suit me better; and I should never have neighboured with William so fine as what I have done with you. But you was fortunate, too, in finding a chap as would take cash for what you was so willing to buy."

"I was," he granted. "Providence never done any member of my family such a turn as it done me when it sent you to my roof; but, outside that, touching William Bird, I be growing to feel--However, if you say 'Go on paying, William,' I'll do so very well content; but if, on the other hand, you reckon that the man's Jewing me and did ought to be spoke to, then I'll be still better content."