“She’s my side.”

“Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again.  He’s well knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon.”

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

“’Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can’t be kept away.”

“For your sake it is, without a doubt—­a thousand pities,” admitted Charity.  “She loves you very well, and a good wife she’ll make—­and a thrifty—­but she won’t trust herself if that man’s curly hair and blue eyes turn up here again.”

“Is it to be done—­can we keep him off—­pay him off—­bribe him—­anything?”

“Now you talk sense.  There’s very few things can’t be done in this world, Mr. Hacker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the same way.  Man’s strength and woman’s wit together—­what’s ever been known to stand against ’em?”

“Help me, then,” he said.

“Me!  You want me to help—­with my ’tomfoolery’?”

She roasted him proper for a bit, then came to business.

“I can’t work for nought, and since ’tis the whole of your future life that depends upon it, I reckon you’ll be generous.  If I succeed I shall look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I’ll ax for nothing.  Still, I do believe I may be able to get you out of this, though ’twill call for oceans of trouble.”

He tried to haggle, but she’d none of that—­wouldn’t bate her offer by a shilling.  So he came to it.

“Thirty pound I must have the day you marry Mary,” she said.  “And now tell me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker.  The more I understand the better chance shall I have of keeping him off your throat.”

With that Peter explained how t’other fellow was the young brother of Mrs. Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one of his tenants; but he didn’t mention the row about Sarah’s cottage.

Mrs. Badge then took up the story, and made it look as clear as daylight.

“My gracious!” she said, “why now you can see how the crash be coming!  ’Tis a terrible poor look-out for you every way.  Sarah’s writ to him, of course, to say as you won’t let her have the cottage your father faithfully promised to her husband, and Coaker’s coming over with threatenings and slaughters about that job.  And then, as if that weren’t enough, he’ll find what a crow he’s got to pluck with you on his own account about Mary.”

“The more comes out, the more it looks as if he’d better be kept away,” said Mr. Hacker.

“And the harder it looks to do it,” added Charity.  “You lie low, anyway.  The next step is for me.  I’ll see Sarah and tell her that you’ve changed your mind about the cottage—­to call it a cottage, for ’tis no better than a pig’s lew house.  You’ll give it her, of course, for her life and the life of that man French, as she wants to marry.  That’s the first step.”

“Why should I?”