'Bravo, our John Ridd!' he answered; 'fools will be fools till the end of the chapter; and I might be as big a one, if I were in thy shoes, John. Nevertheless, in the name of God, don't let that helpless child go about with a thing worth half the county on her.'
'She is worth all the county herself,' said I, 'and all England put together; but she has nothing worth half a rick of hay upon her; for the ring I gave her cost only,'--and here I stopped, for mother was looking, and I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though she had tried fifty times to find out.
'Tush, the ring!' Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me: 'I would never have stopped a man for that. But the necklace, you great oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle Ben's fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton.'
'What,' said I, 'that common glass thing, which she has had from her childhood!'
'Glass indeed! They are the finest brilliants ever I set eyes on; and I have handled a good many.'
'Surely,' cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom's own cheeks with excitement, 'you must be wrong, or the young mistress would herself have known it.'
I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna 'the young mistress'; it was not done for the sake of her diamonds, whether they were glass or not; but because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus, a man of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in calling a lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as in his general tone, which displayed no deference. He might have been used to the quality, in the way of stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with them; but he never had met a high lady before, in equality, and upon virtue; and we both felt that he ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal more humbly than he had even tried to do.
'Trust me,' answered Tom, in his loftiest manner, which Annie said was 'so noble,' but which seemed to me rather flashy, 'trust me, good mother, and simple John, for knowing brilliants, when I see them. I would have stopped an eight-horse coach, with four carabined out-riders, for such a booty as that. But alas, those days are over; those were days worth living in. Ah, I never shall know the like again. How fine it was by moonlight!'