"I'll give you everything I've got, Charity--everything!" cries the girl.

"I'm afraid that ban't enough, my dear. Will you give me ten pound the day you'm married to the dark one? That's a fair offer; and if I don't succeed, I'll ax for nothing."

The girl jumped at that, and said she thankfully would do so; and Mrs.

Badge bade her keep her mouth close shut--knowing she would not--and let her go. Poor Mary went off expecting to meet Nathan Coaker at every step o' the road, and little knowing that the poor blid was sleeping his last sleep in a grave in foreign parts to Ireland.

The very same evening she met Peter Hacker himself; and though he was a chap without much use for religion, yet, like a good few other G.o.dless men, he believed in a good bit more than he could understand, and hated to spill salt, or see a single pie, and wouldn't have cut his nails on a Friday for a king's ransom.

She told him that her old sweetheart, Nathan Coaker, was coming back, and that blood would be spilled, and that the wise woman didn't know for certain whether 'twas his blood or Nathan's. She wept a lot, and told him about Coaker, and what a strong, hard chap he was, and how he had the trick to ride over a woman's heart and win 'em even against their wills.

And altogether she worked upon the mind of Peter Hacker so terrible, that he got into a proper sweat of fear and anger--but chiefly fear. And the next day--unknown to Mary--he rode up along to Walna, and had a tell with Charity Badge on his own account.

Peter began in his usual way with women. He bl.u.s.tered a lot, and talked very loud and stamped his foot and beat his leg with his riding-whip.

"What's all this here tomfoolery you've been telling my girl?" he says. "I wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it--frightening an innocent female into fits. You ought to know better."

Of course Charity did know better, and she knowed Peter and his character inside out as well.

She looked at him, calm as calm, and smiled.

"I wish 'twas tomfoolery, Mr. Hacker. I wish from my heart that the things I see didn't happen; but they always do, if the parties ban't warned in time; though now and again, when a sensible creature comes to me and hears what's going to overtake 'em, they can often escape it--as we can escape a storm if we look up in the sky and know the signs of thunder and lightning soon enough."

"'Tis all stuff and rubbish, I tell you," he said, "and I won't have it!

Fortune-telling be forbidden by law, and if I hear any more about you and your cards and your crystal, I'll inform against you."

"You'd better be quick and do it, then, master," she answers him, still mild and gentle, "for I'm very sorry to say there's that be going to happen to you, as will spoil your usefulness for a month of Sundays or longer; and that afore a fortnight's out. Of course, if you don't believe what I know too well to be the truth, then you'll go your rash way and meet it; but so sure as Christmas Day be Quarter Day, I'm right, and you'll do far wiser to look after your own affairs than to trouble about mine. And now I'll wish you good evening."

She made to go in, for Hacker was sitting on his horse at her very door; but that weren't enough for him. His cowardly heart was shaking a'ready.

"Don't you go," he said. "I'll onlight and hear more of this."

He dismounted and came in the house; and Charity Badge bade me go out of the kitchen, where I was to work, and leave 'em together, but I catched what came after through the keyhole.

"Now," he said. "It lies in a nutsh.e.l.l. My Mary was tokened in a sort of childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker--a horse-stealer or little better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your bit of gla.s.s and pretended to see--"

"Stop!" cried Charity, putting on her grand manner and making her eyes flash like forked lightning at the man. "How do you dare to talk about 'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither list to you, nor help you now. Go to your death--and a good riddance. You to talk about 'pretending' to me!"

He caved in at that, and grumbled and growled, but she'd hear nought more from him till he'd said he was sorry, and that so humbly as he knowed how.

"Now you can go on again," she said, "but be civil, or I'll not lift a finger to aid you."

"'Tis like this," he went on. "It do look as if that man, Nathan Coaker, was coming back."

"That's so. I never seed the fellow myself, but his name certainly was Nathan Coaker, and Mary called him home in a minute from my picture in the crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't; and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll overmaster such a man as you by force of arms. No woman can resist him. I guess he's made his fortune and be coming in triumph to marry her."

"She's going to marry me, however."

"So you think."

The man began to grow more and more cowed afore her cold, steady eyes, and the scorn in her voice.

"The strongest will win," he said.

"Yes," she answered him, "that's true without a doubt--so the cards showed."

"And what's stronger than money?" he axed.

"A man in a righteous rage," she replied; "and a charge of heavy shot with gunpowder behind 'em."

"Lord save us! You don't mean he'd lie in a hedge for me?"

"He'd do anything where his own promised woman was concerned," she said.

"But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face in the open street, and hammer you to death for coming between him and her."

"She's my side."

"Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again. He's well knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon."

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

"'Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can't be kept away."

"For your sake it is, without a doubt--a thousand pities," admitted Charity. "She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make--and a thrifty--but she won't trust herself if that man's curly hair and blue eyes turn up here again."

"Is it to be done--can we keep him off--pay him off--bribe him--anything?"

"Now you talk sense. There's very few things can't be done in this world, Mr. Hacker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the same way. Man's strength and woman's wit together--what's ever been known to stand against 'em?"

"Help me, then," he said.

"Me! You want me to help--with my 'tomfoolery'?"

She roasted him proper for a bit, then came to business.

"I can't work for nought, and since 'tis the whole of your future life that depends upon it, I reckon you'll be generous. If I succeed I shall look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I'll ax for nothing. Still, I do believe I may be able to get you out of this, though 'twill call for oceans of trouble."

He tried to haggle, but she'd none of that--wouldn't bate her offer by a shilling. So he came to it.

"Thirty pound I must have the day you marry Mary," she said. "And now tell me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker. The more I understand the better chance shall I have of keeping him off your throat."

With that Peter explained how t'other fellow was the young brother of Mrs.

Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one of his tenants; but he didn't mention the row about Sarah's cottage.

Mrs. Badge then took up the story, and made it look as clear as daylight.

"My gracious!" she said, "why now you can see how the crash be coming!

'Tis a terrible poor look-out for you every way. Sarah's writ to him, of course, to say as you won't let her have the cottage your father faithfully promised to her husband, and Coaker's coming over with threatenings and slaughters about that job. And then, as if that weren't enough, he'll find what a crow he's got to pluck with you on his own account about Mary."

"The more comes out, the more it looks as if he'd better be kept away,"