The man repeated his proposal with a look that taught even Hannah’s simplicity that she had received the deepest insult a woman could suffer.  Hannah was a rude, honest, high-spirited old maid.  And she immediately obeyed her natural impulses, which were to raise her strong hands and soundly box the villain’s ears right and left, until he saw more stars in the firmament than had ever been created.  And before he could recover from the shock of the assault she picked up her basket and strode from the shop.  Indignation lent her strength and speed, and she walked home in double-quick time.  But once in the shelter of her own hut she sat down, threw her apron over her head, and burst into passionate tears and sobs, crying: 

“It’s all along of poor Nora and that child, as I’m thought ill on by the women and insulted by the men!  Yes, it is, you miserable little wretch!” she added, speaking to the baby, who had opened his big eyes to see the cause of the uproar.  “It’s all on her account and yourn, as I’m treated so!  Why do you keep on living, you poor little shrimp?  Why don’t you die?  Why can’t both of us die?  Many people die who want to live!  Why should we live who want to die?  Tell me that, little miserable!” But the baby defiantly sucked his thumb, as if it held the elixir of life, and looked indestructible vitality from his great, bright eyes.

Hannah never ventured to ask another favor from mortal man, except the very few in whom she could place entire confidence, such as the pastor of the parish, the Professor of Odd Jobs, and old Jovial.  Especially she shunned Nutt’s shop as she would have shunned a pesthouse; although this course obliged her to go two miles farther to another village to procure necessaries whenever she had money to pay for them.

Nutt, on his part, did not think it prudent to prosecute Hannah for assault.  But he did a base thing more fatal to her reputation.  He told his wife how that worthless creature, whose sister turned out so badly, had come running after him, wanting to get goods from his shop, and teasing him to come to see her; but that he had promptly ordered her out of the shop and threatened her with a constable if ever she dared to show her face there again.

False, absurd, and cruel as this story was, Mrs. Nutt believed it, and told all her acquaintances what an abandoned wretch that woman was.  And thus poor Hannah Worth lost all that she possessed in the world—­her good name.  She had been very poor.  But it would be too dreadful now to tell in detail of the depths of destitution and misery into which she and the child fell, and in which they suffered and struggled to keep soul and body together for years and years.

It is wonderful how long life may be sustained under the severest privations.  Ishmael suffered the extremes of hunger and cold; yet he did not starve or freeze to death; he lived and grew in that mountain hut as pertinaciously as if he had been the pampered pet of some royal nursery.