Once only--though the kneeling cost him torture, and the sweat came
no less from anguish than from exertion--did he pause and straighten
himself up to listen. Upstairs the Penhaligon children had awakened
with the daylight and were talking--chirruping like sparrows--before
they left their beds--

Hey! now the day dawis;
The joly cock crawis . . .

--but Nicky-Nan toiled on in his dim parlour, collecting wealth.

By eight o'clock he had picked up and arranged--still in neat piles
of twenty--some eight hundred coins of golden money. His belly was
fasting: but he had forgotten the crust in the cupboard. Had he not
here enough to defray a king's banquet?

Some one tapped on the door. Nicky-Nan, startled, raised himself
upright on his knees and called in a tremor--

"No admittance!"

As he staggered up and made for the door, to press his weight against
it, Mrs Penhaligon spoke on the other side.

"Mr Nanjivell!"

"Ma'am?"

"The postman, with a letter for you! I'll fetch it in, if you wish: