CHAPTER XXIII

THE HAVERLEY FINANCES AND MRS. ROBINSON

“It bothers the head off of me,” said Molly Tooney to Mike, as she sat eating her supper in the Cobhurst kitchen, “to try to foind out what thim two upstairs is loike, anyway, ’specially her.  I’ve been here nigh onto two weeks, now, and I don’t know her no betther than when I fust come.  For the life of me I can’t make out whether she’s a gal woman or a woman gal.  Sometimes she’s one and sometimes t’other.  And then there’s he.  Why didn’t he marry and settle before he took a house to himself?  And in the two Sundays I’ve been here, nather of thim’s been to church.  If they knowed what was becomin’ to thim, they’d behave like Christians, if they are heretics.”

Mike sat at a little table in the corner of the kitchen with his back to Molly, eating his supper.  He had enough of the Southern negro in him to make him dislike to eat with white people or to turn his face toward anybody while partaking of his meals.  But he also had enough of a son of Erin in him to make him willing to talk whenever he had a chance.  Turning his head a little, he asked, “Now look a here, Molly; if a man’s a heretic, how can he be a Christian?”

“There’s two kinds of heretics,” said Molly, filling her great tea-cup for the fourth time, and holding the teapot so that the last drop of the strong decoction should trickle into the cup; “Christian heretics and haythen heretics.  You’re one of the last koind yoursilf, Mike, for you never go nigh a church, except to whitewash the walls of it.  And you’ll never git no benefit to your own sowl, from Phoebe’s boardin’ the minister, nather.  Take my word for that, Mike.”

Mike allowed himself a sort of froggy laugh.  “There’s nobody gets no good out of that, but him,” said he; “but you’ve got it crooked about their not goin’ to church.  They did go reg’lar at fust, but the gig’s at the wheelwright’s gettin’ new shaf’s.”

“Gig, indeed!” ejaculated Molly.  “No kirridge, but an auld gig!  There’s not much quality about thim two.  I wouldn’t be here working for the likes o’ thim, if it was not for me wish to oblige Miss Panney, poor old woman as she’s gittin’ to be.”

Mike shrewdly believed that it was due to Miss Panney’s knowledge of some of Molly’s misdeeds, and not to any desire to please the old lady, that the commands of the latter were law to the Irishwoman, but he would not say so.

“Kerridge or no kerridge,” said he, “they’re good ’nough quality for me, and I reckon I knows what quality is.  They hain’t got much money, that’s sure, but there’s lots of quality that ain’t got money; and he’s got sense, and that’s better than money.  When he fust come here, I jes’ goes to him, and ses I, ‘How’s you goin’ to run this farm, sir,—­ramshackle or reg’lar?’ He looked at me kinder bothered, and then I ’splained.  ‘Well,’ said he, ’reg’lar will cost more money than I’ve got, and I reckon we’ll have to run it ramshackle.’  That’s what we did, and we’re gittin’ along fust rate.  He works and I work, and what we ain’t got no time to do, we let stand jes’ thar till we git time to ’tend to it.  That’s ramshackle.  We don’t spend no time on fancy fixin’s, and not much money on nuthin’.”