"
Scarcely had she done speaking than the two young fellows hastened to
count over to her such monies as they possessed, while the girl
watched sullen and defiant.
"Aie--aie!" quoth the old woman suddenly. "Bennigo, you have but three
to Jochabed's eight, so Jochabed taketh her--unless the nice, kind,
young gorgio will give more--the fine young gorgio as my wisdom
telleth me is other than he do seem--aha! What of it, young
master--aie--aie?"
"Young man," whispered the girl, grasping my arm in strong, compelling
fingers and staring at me with eyes big and desperate, "young man, if
you would not see bloody work--turn out your pockets!"
Moved by her wild looks, I obeyed almost involuntarily, but hardly was
my purse out of my pocket than she snatched and tossed it to the old
woman.
"Count, grannam, count!" she cried imperiously, "and if't is not
enough I've my little _churi_ for the first as dare touch me!"
The old woman opened my purse, told over its contents very
deliberately, nodded and, thrusting it into her bosom, spoke with the
fierce-eyed men in her strange dialect, tapped each with her staff and
motioned them to be gone; hereupon, and to my unutterable wonder, they
obeyed her and slunk off without a word.
"Fourteen guineas!" said she. "Fourteen guineas be more than
eight--fourteen guineas, a florin, one groat and three pennies! Aha,
't is more than she be worth, I think, by reason of her shrewish
tongue and unkindly ways, and if only a _hindity mengro_ and no true
_Camlo_ yet she be's a _rinkinni fakement_ to look at, but
then a bargain is a bargain--an' I wishes ye j'y o' her, my young
rye!" Which said, she reached out her staff and touched first me and
then the girl lightly on head and breast, muttering a farrago of
strange words while her bright glance flashed from one to other of us;
then she turned and, bowed upon her staff, climbed the ferny steep
nimble and sure-footed despite her years and left us staring after
her, the girl frowning and sullen as ever, I full of chagrined
surprise and a growing uneasiness.
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