Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by
passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its
own powers with interest. Mary had plenty of merriment within.
Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man
on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an
aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of
vices. She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr.
Featherstone: he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him.
To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left
to the saints of the earth; and Mary was not one of them. She had
never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that
was her utmost. Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious
about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.
To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay
remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of
keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.
About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, "Missy, come
here!"
Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under
the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he
had selected the key. He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it
another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have
recovered all their sharpness and said, "How many of 'em are in the
house?"
"You mean of your own relations, sir," said Mary, well used to the old
man's way of speech. He nodded slightly and she went on.
"Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here."
"Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day, I'll
warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns? They come peeping,
and counting and casting up?"
"Not all of them every day. Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every
day, and the others come often."
The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said,
relaxing his face, "The more fools they. You hearken, missy. It's
three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties as well as
ever I had in my life. I know all my property, and where the money's
put out, and everything. And I've made everything ready to change my
mind, and do as I like at the last. Do you hear, missy? I've got my
faculties."