For the
doctor had told Mrs. Saunders that the next time it might go hard with
her; and in this house, her husband growing more reckless and drunken, it
was altogether a bad look-out, and she might die for want of a little
nourishment or a little care. Unfortunately they would both be down at the
same time, and it was almost impossible that Esther should be well in time
to look after her mother. That brute! It was wrong to think of her father
so, but he seemed to be without mercy for any of them. He had come in
yesterday half-boozed, having kept back part of his money--he had come in
tramping and hiccuping.
"Now, then, old girl, out with it! I must have a few halfpence; my chaps
is waiting for me, and I can't be looking down their mouths with nothing
in my pockets."
"I only have a few halfpence to get the children a bit of dinner; if I
give them to you they'll have nothing to eat."
"Oh, the children can eat anything; I want beer. If yer 'aven't money,
make it."
Mrs. Saunders said that if he had any spare clothes she would take them
round the corner. He only answered--
"Well, if I 'aven't a spare waistcoat left just take some of yer own
things. I tell yer I want beer, and I mean to have some."
Then, with his fist raised, he came at his poor wife, ordering her to take
one of the sheets from the bed and "make money," and would have struck her
if Esther had not come between them and, with her hand in her pocket,
said, "Be quiet, father; I'll give you the money you want.
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