Gold and Incense: A West Country StoryPearse, Mark Guy
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Gold and Incense: A West Country Story
Pearse, Mark Guy
West Country (England) -- Fiction
"No, sir, no. You must put it in the box. I did not mean to let anybody
know, but I could not tell how to manage it. If I put it in the box my
own self, why some of them might see me, and then I was afraid they
might be after stopping my half a crown a week and my loaf of bread,
thinking that I had come into a fortune all of a sudden." And she
laughed again.
"No, Jennifer; we must have it down among the subscriptions, and it
ought really to head the list. I will call it _Anonymous_, you know."
"Oh, that's much too fine a name for Jennifer Petch. Call it '_Gold and
Incense_.' I _do_ know what that do mean, if anybody else don't," and
Jennifer laughed again.
And so it was entered, and so it was duly announced. Jennifer blushed
and laughed so much when it was read that any suspicious person might
have found out her secret after all. But no one dreamed that this was
Jennifer's assumed name.
It was not long before her good friend met with Jennifer again.
"I can't get over that half-sovereign of yours, Jennifer," he began. "I
am really quite curious to know how you managed it. You will tell me,
won't you?"
"Well, I s'pose I must," said Jennifer shyly; "but I meant to keep it
all to myself, you know. Nobody knows about it but you."
"Well, then, I may know all, mayn't I?"
Little by little it all came out. And this was Jennifer's story:
"Well, it was the day after the meeting that I was singing to myself
the words,--
"Kings shall fall down before Him,
And gold and incense bring,"
when it seemed to me like as if I could see them coming like Solomon in
all his glory, and laying down their gifts at His dear feet; but, there,
you will be getting all my secret out of me. It must come, I s'pose.
Well, the tune and the words were sort of ringing in my head when I
turned round out of the wind for to--to---- You mustn't be hard on me.
It was to take a _pinch of snuff_."
"Oh, Jennifer!"
"It was only a penn'orth a week, sir," she pleaded, "And it did seem to
sharpen me up a bit out in the cold. Well, while I was taking it I
laughed to myself. 'That's the nearest to _incense_ that I can think
of,' I said. 'I will give that to the Lord.' And, bless you, sir, would
you believe it? I got to turning round out of the wind to make believe I
had it, and it did every bit so well.
[Illustration]
"The next Saturday, instead of giving the penny to a neighbour to get
the snuff into market, I put the penny into an old broken teapot, and
put it on top of the dresser, and I said, 'There's a nest egg, then.'
Well, I quite longed for the next Saturday to come, and then there was a
penny more. And in three weeks there was a threepenny bit. I did think
that was a prettier colour for the Lord, but, bless you, I liked the
three pennies better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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