"Then 'oo IS grandad tum back," she said.
Mrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pocket, and extracted a penny,
which she pressed on me.
"It's little enough, mister," she said.
Then, as I tried to return it: "Nay, I've enough, and yours is
poor paid work."
I hope I shall always be able to keep that penny; and as I watched
the three going down the dusty white road, with the child in the
middle, I thanked God for the Brotherhood of the Poor.
CHAPTER IV
Yesterday a funeral passed, from the work-house at N-, a quaint
sepulture without solemnities. The rough, ungarnished coffin of
stained deal lay bare and unsightly on the floor of an old market-
cart; a woman sat beside, steadying it with her feet. The husband
drove; and the most depressed of the three was the horse, a broken-
kneed, flea-bitten grey. It was pathetic, this bringing home in
death of the old father whom, while he lived, they had been too
poor to house; it was at no small sacrifice that they had spared
him that terror of old age, a pauper's grave, and brought him to
lie by his wife in our quiet churchyard. They felt no emotion,
this husband and wife, only a dull sense of filial duty done,
respectability preserved; and above and through all, the bitter but
necessary counting the cost of this last bed.
It is strange how pagan many of us are in our beliefs. True, the
funeral libations have made way for the comfortable bake-meats;
still, to the large majority Death is Pluto, king of the dark
Unknown whence no traveller returns, rather than Azrael, brother
and friend, lord of this mansion of life.
Pages:
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28