“Gert news!  Gert news!” he shouted, while yet in the passage; “sweatin’ for joy an’ haste, I be!”

His eyes sparkled, his face shone, his words tripped each other up by the heels.

“Be gormed if ban’t a ‘mazin’ world!  She’ve left nought—­dammy—­less than nought, for the house be mortgaged sea-deep to Doctor, an’ theer’s other debts.  Not a penny for nobody—­nothin’ but empty bottles—­an’ to think as I thought so poor o’ God as to say theer weern’t none!  What a ramshackle plaace the world is!”

“No money at all?  Mrs. Lezzard—­it can’t be!” declared Mr. Lyddon.

“But it is, by gum!  A braave tantara ’mongst the fam’ly, I tell ’e.  Not a stiver—­all ate up in a ‘nuity, an’ her—­artful limb!—­just died on the last penny o’ the quarter’s payment.  An’ Lezzard left at the work’us door—­poor auld zawk!  An’ him fourscore an’ never been eggicated an’ never larned nothin’!”

“To think it might have been your trouble, Blee!”

“That’s it, that’s it!  That’s what I be full of!  Awnly for the watchin’ Lard, I’d been fixed in the hole myself.  Just picture it!  Me a-cussin’ o’ Christ to blazes an’ lettin’ on theer wasn’t no such Pusson; an’ Him, wide awake, a-keepin’ me out o’ harm’s way, even arter the banns was called!  Theer’s a God for ‘e!  Watchin’ day an’ night to see as I comed by no harm!  That’s what ‘t is to have laid by a tidy mort o’ righteousness ’gainst a evil hour!”

“You ’m well out of it, sure enough.”

“Ess, ‘t is so.  I misjudged the Lard shocking, an’ I’m man enough to up and say it, thank God.  He was right an’ I was wrong; an’ lookin’ back, I sees it.  So I’ll come back to the fold, like the piece of silver what was lost; an’ theer’ll be joy in heaven, as well theer may be.  Burnish it all!  I’ll go along to church ’fore all men’s eyes next Lard’s Day ever is.”

“A gude thought, tu.  Religion’s a sort of benefit society, if you look at it, an’ the church be the bank wheer us pays in subscriptions Sundays.”

“An’ blamed gude interest us gets for the money,” declared Mr. Blee.  “Not but what I’ve drawed a bit heavy on my draft of late, along o’ pretendin’ to heathen ways an’ thoughts what I never really held with; but ‘t is all wan now an’ I lay I’ll soon set the account right, wi’ a balance in my favour, tu.  Seein’ how shameful I was used, ban’t likely no gert things will be laid against me.”

“And auld Lezzard will go to the Union?”

“A very fittin’ plaace for un, come to think on ’t.  Awver-balanced for sheer greed of gawld he was.  My! what a wild-goose chase!  An the things he’ve said to me!  Not that I’d allow myself—­awuly from common humanity I must see un an’ let un knaw I bear no more malice than a bird on a bough.”

They drank, Billy deeper than usual.  He was marvellously excited and cheerful.  He greeted God like an old friend returned to him from a journey; and that night before retiring he stood stiffly beside his bed and covered his face in his hands and prayed a prayer familiar among his generation.