Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/44

 wunnot listen to yo' wi' yo'r questions, and yo'r doubts. There's but one thing steady and quiet i' all this reeling world, and, reason or no reason, I'll cling to that. It's a' very well for happy folk"

Margaret touched his arm very softly. She had not spoken before, nor had he heard her rise.

"Nicholas, we do not want to reason; you misunderstand my father. We do not reason—we believe; and so do you. It is the one sole comfort in such times."

He turned round and caught her hand. "Ay! it is, it is"—(brushing away the tears with the back of his hand).—"But yo' know, she's lying dead at home; and I'm welly dazed wi' sorrow, and at times I hardly know what I'm saying. It's as if speeches folk ha' made—clever and smart things as I've thought at the time—come up now my heart's welly brossen. Th' strike's failed as well; dun yo' know that, miss? I were coming whoam to ask her, like a beggar as I am, for a bit o' comfort i' that trouble; and I were knocked down by one who telled me she were dead—just dead. That were all; but that were enough for me."

Mr. Hale blew his nose, and got up to snuff the candles in order to conceal his emotion. "He's not an infidel, Margaret; how could you say so?" muttered he reproachfully. "I've a good mind to read him the fourteenth chapter of Job."

"Not yet, papa, I think. Perhaps not at all. Let us ask him about the strike, and give him all the sympathy he needs, and hoped to have from poor Bessy."

So they questioned and listened. The work-