Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/287

 then, gaining the door with a rapid stride, said, in hoarse broken tones: "Share your refuge! no--no--I should break your heart downright did you see me daily--hourly as I am! You work for both!--you--you!" His voice stopped, choked for a brief moment, and then hurried on: "As for that girl--you--you--you are--but no matter, I will try to obey you--will try to wrestle against hunger, despair, and thoughts that whisper sinking men with devils' tongues. I will try--I will try; if I succeed not, keep your threat--accuse me--give me up to justice--clear yourself; but if you would crush me more than by the heaviest curse, never again speak to me with such dreadful tenderness! Cling not to me, old man; release me, I say;--there--there; off. Ah! I did not hurt you? Brute that I am--you bless me--you--you! And I dare not bless again! Let me go--let me go--let me go!" He wrenched himself away from his father's clasp--drowning with loud tone his father's pathetic soothings--out of the house-down the hill--lost to sight in the shades of the falling eve.

CHAPTER VI.

GENTLEMAN WAIFE DOES NOT FORGET AN OLD FRIEND. THE OLD FRIEND RECONCILES ASTROLOGY TO PRUDENCE, AND IS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF  BENEFICE. MR. HARTOPP HAT IN HAND TO GENTLEMAN WAIFE.

Waife fell on the floor of his threshold, exclaiming, sobbing, moaning, as voice itself gradually died away. The dog, who had been shut out from the house, and remained, ears erect, head drooping, close at the door, rushed in as Jasper burst forth. The two listeners at the open casement now stole round; there was the dog, its paw on the old man's shoulder, trying to attract his notice, and whining low.

Tenderly--reverentially, they lift the poor martyr--evermore cleared in their eyes from stain, from question; the dishonouring brand transmuted into the hallowing cross! And when the old man at length recovered consciousness, his head was pillowed on the breast of the spotless, noble Preacher; and the decorous English Trader, with instinctive deference for repute and respect for law, was kneeling by his side, clasping his hand; and as Wife glanced down,