"And what is he?"
"He is a parson."
I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage,
when I had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his
father's residence?"
"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather,
and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."
"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"
"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."
"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"
"Yes."
"Their father is dead?"
"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."
"They have no mother?"
"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."
"Have you lived with the family long?"
"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three."
"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I
will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call
me a beggar."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she
said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so
mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me."
"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me
from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."
"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'
childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak'
care on 'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish."
I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.
"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why--not
so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an
impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that
I had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever
lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian,
you ought not to consider poverty a crime."
"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I
see I wor wrang--but I've clear a different notion on you now to
what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater."
"That will do--I forgive you now. Shake hands."
She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier
smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were
friends.