'So do I, my dear Anne,' said the old woman, 'for I mean that you and your brother shall have all the money that you get to-morrow. You may buy some ginger bread for yourselves, or some of those ripe plums that you saw at the fruit-stall the other day, which is just going into Dunstable. I told you then that I could not afford to buy such things for you, but now that you can earn halfpence for yourselves, children, it is fair you should taste a ripe plum and bit of gingerbread for once and a way in your lives.'
'We'll bring some of the gingerbread home to her, shan't we, brother?' whispered little Anne.
The morning came, but no carriages were heard though Paul and his sister had risen at five o'clock that they might be sure to be ready for early travellers. Paul kept his scotcher poised upon his shoulder, and watched eagerly at his station at the bottom of the hill. He did not wait long before a carriage came. He followed it up the hill, and the instant the postillion called to him and bade him stop the wheels, he put his scotcher behind them, and found that it answered the purpose perfectly well.
Many carriages went by this day, and Paul and Anne received a great many halfpence from the travellers.
When it grew dusk in the evening Anne said to her brother: 'I don't think any more carriages will come by to-day. Let us count the halfpence, and carry them home now to grandmother.'
'No, not yet,' answered Paul; 'let them alone – let them lie still in the hole where I have put them. I dare say more carriages will come by before it is quite dark, and then we shall have more halfpence.'
Paul had taken the halfpence out of his hat, and he had put them into a hole in the high bank by the roadside, and Anne said she would not meddle with them, and that she would wait till her brother liked to count them; and Paul said: 'If you will stay and watch here, I will go and gather some blackberries for you in the hedge in yonder field. Stand you hereabouts, half-way up the hill, and the moment you see any carriage coming along the road run as fast as you can and call me.'
Anne waited a long time, or what she thought a long time, and she saw no carriage and she trailed her brother's scotcher up and down till she was tired. Then she stood still and looked again, and she saw no carriage, so she went sorrowfully into the field and to the hedge where her brother was gathering blackberries, and she said:
'Paul, I'm sadly tired —sadly tired!' said she, 'and my eyes are quite strained with looking for chaises. No more chaises will come to-night, and your scotcher is lying there, of no use, upon the ground. Have not I waited long enough for to-day, Paul?'
'Oh no,' said Paul. 'Here are some blackberries for you; you had better wait a little bit longer. Perhaps a carriage might go by whilst you are standing here talking to me.'
Anne, who was of a very obliging temper, and who liked to do what she was asked to do, went back to the place where the scotcher lay, and scarcely had she reached the spot when she heard the noise of a carriage. She ran to call her brother, and, to their great joy, they now saw four chaises coming towards them. Paul, as soon as they went up the hill, followed with his scotcher. First he scotched the wheels of one carriage, then of another; and Anne was so much delighted with observing how well the scotcher stopped the wheels, and how much better it was than stones, that she forgot to go and hold her brother's hat to the travellers for halfpence, till she was roused by the voice of a little rosy girl who was looking out of the window of one of the chaises. 'Come close to the chaise-door,' said the little girl; 'here are some halfpence for you.'
Anne held the hat, and she afterwards went on to the other carriages. Money was thrown to her from each of them, and when they had all gotten safely to the top of the hill, she and her brother sat down upon a large stone by the roadside to count their treasure. First they began by counting what was in the hat – 'One, two, three, four halfpence.'
'But, oh, brother, look at this!' exclaimed Anne; 'this is not the same as the other halfpence.'
'No, indeed, it is not,' cried Paul; 'it is no halfpenny. It is a guinea – a bright golden guinea!'
'Is it?' said Anne, who had never seen a guinea in her life before, and who did not know its value, 'and will it do as well as a halfpenny to buy gingerbread? I'll run to the fruit-stall and ask the woman, shall I?'
'No, no,' said Paul, 'you need not ask any woman, or anybody but me. I can tell you all about it as well as anybody in the whole world.'
'The whole world! Oh, Paul, you forgot. Not so well as my grandmother.'
'Why, not so well as my grandmother, perhaps; but, Anne, I can tell you that you must not talk yourself, Anne, but you must listen to me quietly, or else you won't understand what I am going to tell you; for I can assure you that I don't think I quite understood it myself, Anne, the first time my grandmother told it to me, though I stood stock-still listening my best.'
Prepared by this speech to hear something very difficult to be understood, Anne looked very grave, and her brother explained to her that with a guinea she might buy two hundred and fifty-two times as many plums as she could get for a penny.
'Why, Paul, you know the fruit-woman said she would give us a dozen plums for a penny. Now, for this little guinea would she give us two hundred and fifty-two dozen?'
'If she has so many, and if we like to have so many, to be sure she will,' said Paul; 'but I think we should not like to have two hundred and fifty-two dozen of plums; we could not eat such a number.'
'But we could give some of them to my grandmother,' said Anne.
'But still there would be too many for her, and for us, too,' said Paul, 'and when we had eaten the plums there would be an end to all the pleasure. But now I'll tell you what I am thinking of, Anne, that we might buy something for my grandmother that would be very useful to her indeed with the guinea – something that would last a great while.'
'What, brother? What sort of thing?'
'Something that she said she wanted very much last winter, when she was so ill with the rheumatism – something that she said yesterday, when you were making her bed, she wished she might be able to buy before next winter.'
'I know, I know what you mean!' said Anne – 'a blanket. Oh, yes, Paul, that will be much better than plums; do let us buy a blanket for her. How glad she will be to see it! I will make her bed with the new blanket, and then bring her to look at it. But, Paul, how shall we buy a blanket? Where are blankets to be got?'
'Leave that to me; I'll manage that. I know where blankets can be got; I saw one hanging out of a shop the day I went last to Dunstable.'
'You have seen a great many things at Dunstable, brother.'
'Yes, a great many; but I never saw anything there or anywhere else that I wished for half so much as I did for the blanket for my grandmother. Do you remember how she used to shiver with the cold last winter? I'll buy the blanket to-morrow. I'm going to Dunstable with her spinning.'
'And you'll bring the blanket to me, and I shall make the bed very neatly. That will be all right – all happy!' said Anne, clapping her hands.
'But stay! Hush! don't clap your hands so, Anne. It will not be all happy, I'm afraid,' said Paul, and his countenance changed, and he looked very grave. 'It will not be all right, I'm afraid, for there's one thing we have neither of us thought of, but that we ought to think about. We cannot buy the blanket, I'm afraid.'
'Why – Paul, why?'
'Because I don't think this guinea is honestly ours.'
'Nay, brother, but I'm sure it is honestly ours. It was given to us, and grandmother said all that was given to us to-day was to be our own.'
'But who gave it to you, Anne?'
'Some of the people in those chaises, Paul. I don't know which of them, but I dare say it was the little rosy girl.'
'No,' said Paul, 'for when she called you to the chaise door she said, "Here's some halfpence for you." Now, if she gave you the guinea, she must have given it to you by mistake.'
'Well, but perhaps