You know all about that--I'm getting scant o'
breath, and blind-like."
Then again he spoke, after some minutes of hushed silence.
"All along it came natural to love folk, though now I am what I am.
I think one time I could e'en have loved the masters if they'd ha'
letten me; that was in my Gospel-days, afore my child died o'
hunger. I was tore in two oftentimes, between my sorrow for poor
suffering folk, and my trying to love them as caused their
sufferings (to my mind).
"At last I gave it up in despair, trying to make folks' actions
square wi' th' Bible; and I thought I'd no longer labour at
following th' Bible mysel. I've said all this afore, maybe. But
from that time I've dropped down, down--down."
After that he only spoke in broken sentences.
"I did not think he'd been such an old man,--oh! that he had but
forgiven me,"--and then came earnest, passionate, broken words of
prayer.
Job Legh had gone home like one struck down with the unexpected
shock.
Mary and Jem together waited the approach of death; but as the final
struggle drew on, and morning dawned, Jem suggested some alleviation
to the gasping breath, to purchase which he left the house in search
of a druggist's shop, which should be open at that early hour.
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