‘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.
Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress, and ‘the childer,’ as she called the young people.
Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, ‘aboon two hundred year old—for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi’ Mr. Oliver’s grand hall down i’ Morton Vale.
