Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories/"Well Done"

E lay on the bed, a shrunken, feeble figure of a man, with a withered, weather-scarred face, and toil-scarred hands. Over him was a quilt of crazy patchwork, hundreds and hundreds of coloured scraps sewn together, a monument of wonderfully patient toil, made thirty years before by a wife who is dead a long time now. Her works live after her—the quilt which covered him, the girl who stood by the fireplace, at whose birth the mother died, John, the first-born, four other girls, and Thomas, who stokes the engine of a steamer on the St. Lawrence river. Now "himself," husband, father, widower, lay dying. Outside in the kitchen John sat over the fire and waited, a grizzled, unemotional, strong man of forty-five. The clergyman sat by the bedside. Near at hand was a table, standing unsteadily on the pitted earthen floor. It was spread with a white cloth, and on it were little silver vessels. Across the end of it lay the clergyman's surplice. The old man had received the Sacrament for the last time, the Sacrament of which he had partaken a thousand times before, kneeling at the altar rails.

"If it's pleasing to your reverence," he said, "I'd like to say over the Belief along with you the way we did be saying it at prayers in the church."

The clergyman nodded. He began the Apostle's Creed, and recited it clause by clause. The old man followed him. The girl at the fireplace stood rigidly upright, and her lips moved. She too was saying the familiar words. John, in the kitchen, rose from his stool and stood until the voices ceased. There was silence for a time and then the old man spoke again.

"Sarah," he said, "let you go out of this and wait along with John until I call for you. There's something I want his Reverence to do for me."

The girl left the room obediently. The ill-fitting door was closed behind her. The old man watched her go, glanced at the door, and then, turning himself with difficulty, leaned towards the edge of the bed. He spoke in a whisper.

"It would be right," he said, "that I'd settle about the farm and the stock and the bit of money I have before I go."

"It would," said the clergyman, "every man ought to do that."

"There's a bottle of ink and a pen there on the chimney piece, and paper along with them. If it wouldn't be troubling you too much, I'd be thankful if you'd get them and write down what I'd be telling you. Yourself would know how it ought to be done so as there'll be no trouble after."

It was no strange task for the clergyman. He had made a hundred such wills before. His knowledge of legal phraseology was scanty, but no one afterwards disputed the validity of what he wrote.

"Let the farm go to John," said the old man. "The land there is here and the bit behind at Bundorragh. And let the stock go along with it, only the young heifer. I'd like Sarah would have the young heifer, and the right to her grass for as long as she's in it; and I hope that won't be long, for it's near time she was getting married. I'd like if John would make a way across the side of the hill where I cleared the furze bushes, so as a cart could get in off the road. It's what I had in my mind to do this long time, only my strength went from me. The place is backward the way it is, us not being able to get as much as the turf into it without we'd carry it on asses, and that's a drawback to any house. There'll be no need for you to write that down, your Reverence. John will do it when you bid him."

"He will. John's a good boy."

"And he's well fit to do it. It took me the best part of ten years before I got the hill rightly clear, working at it odd times when there wouldn't be much doing, and hard work it was. When I started on it it's hardly ever a sheep would be able to pick a bit there the way the bushes was so thick."

His eyes strayed to the window as he spoke. The hill lay opposite to the house, clean, and now brown where John had ploughed it up.

"There's fifty pounds in the bank," the old man went on. "Let Sarah have it, all but ten pounds. John will be getting a girl with a fortune, be the same more or less, when I'm gone from him, and he has the place to himself. The rest of the girls got their share when they married, and Sarah has a right to what's in it now, all but ten pounds."

"What about Lizzie?" said the clergyman. "Lizzie's not married, is she?"

"Lizzie's beyond in America. She had her chance like the rest of them. She had more chances than the rest of them, but she was stubborn. She wouldn't marry the boy I had laid out for her; and after that she wouldn't marry another, or a third on the top of him. She had it in her mind to go to America, and it's there she's gone. Let Sarah get the money. It's her has the best right to it; all but ten pounds."

The clergyman waited, pen in hand. He guessed the destiny of the ten pounds.

"I wouldn't like Lizzie to be thinking that I had any ill-will at her, for I haven't. It wouldn't be right for me now that I'm not long for this world. She went against me, and I told her she'd be better off out of this, and not to be standing in the way of her sisters, when I could see plain that she'd never marry, for the boys I got were decent boys, with good homes to offer her. I'd like she'd have the ten pounds, the way she'd know I've no ill-will at her. But let her not come home to get it. Let your Reverence send it out to her. She's better where she is now she's there. If she was back she'd be only upsetting Sarah's mind, and maybe taking her out along with her."

"Is that all?" said the clergyman.

"It is all, and if you have it written down I'd be thankful if you'd keep it by you till I'm gone, and then see that things is done according to what I'm after telling you."

"Do you mean that you wish me to be your executor?"

"I leave it to your Reverence to settle that. There isn't one in the country I'd trust sooner than yourself. And now that I'm easy in my mind about the land and the money, there's one thing more that I'd like to speak to you about. Are you listening to me?"

"I am surely."

"Well, it's what I wouldn't tell to e'er a man only yourself, but I've been meaning to tell you this long time. It was six weeks ago or maybe more, any way it wasn't long before the Christmas. It was the first Sunday I gave up going in to prayers, and I was always a good one to go till I wasn't fit to face the hill on the way home out of the town without sitting down maybe twice to get my breath; and that's what I would be ashamed to do. John was at prayers, and Sarah along with him, and that was the way I came to be alone by myself in the house. I was sitting by the fire, and I was thinking of the hill beyond there, and the way it did be covered with furze bushes so as a sheep would hardly pick a bit in between them. I was going back over the job I had clearing it, and terrible work it was getting the roots hoked up. It would have suited me better to be reading my Bible when I couldn't go in to prayers, but what I'm telling you is the way it was, and what was in my mind at the time. All of a sudden there was hands laid on my head from behind like, the way I wouldn't see who was there. Nor I didn't try to see, for there was a kind of a dread on me knowing well I was alone in the house. I didn't say a word, but no more did He, only there did be a wonderful content on me. It's what I never told to e'er a one before, and I wouldn't be telling it to you now, only that I'd be easier in my mind if your Reverence knew. I could know by the feel of the hands on me that it was Himself, and He was pleased and I'd a right to be content. I was content too, and I knew that I hadn't long to stay here. I knew my strength wouldn't come back to me, and that it would have to be John that would make the way across the side of the hill out into the road. But I was contented in myself, with the feel of the hands on my head. Tell me this, now, your Reverence, for it's yourself would know the like if anybody would, was it Him that came to me that time?"

"I haven't the least doubt but it was."

"It's wonderful," said the old man. "I was thinking myself that it could only be Him. There's ne'er another only Him would do it, and this the backward kind of place that it is, and no way into it off the road, without you'd be climbing fences and walls. It's wonderful! And hadn't I the right to be contented when I could tell by the feel of the hands on me that He was pleased; though I wouldn't say there was much about me to please Him? For it's not easy for a man to be attending to his religious duties the way he should when he has a long family to rear, and herself gone from him with them young, and the like of that hill with the furze bushes on it opposite the house."