Morning and night I send down
the moss-grown bucket with its urgent message from a dry and dusty
world; the chain tightens through my hand as the liquid treasure
responds to the messenger, and then with creak and jangle--the
welcome of labouring earth--the bucket slowly nears the top and
disperses the treasure in the waiting vessels. The Gibeonites were
servants in the house of God, ministers of the sacrament of service
even as the High Priest himself; and I, sharing their high office
of servitude, thank God that the ground was accursed for my sake,
for surely that curse was the womb of all unborn blessing.
The old widow with whom I lodge has been deaf for the last twenty
years. She speaks in the strained high voice which protests
against her own infirmity, and her eyes have the pathetic look of
those who search in silence. For many years she lived alone with
her son, who laboured on the farm two miles away. He met his death
rescuing a carthorse from its burning stable; and the farmer gave
the cottage rent free and a weekly half-crown for life to the poor
old woman whose dearest terror was the workhouse. With my shilling
a week rent, and sharing of supplies, we live in the lines of
comfort. Of death she has no fears, for in the long chest in the
kitchen lie a web of coarse white linen, two pennies covered with
the same to keep down tired eyelids, decent white stockings, and a
white cotton sun-bonnet--a decorous death-suit truly--and enough
money in the little bag for self-respecting burial.
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