"We must be going," he objected, "for it looks stormy, and the sooner
we set out the better."
"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop the night," she said, "for I
couldn't make you comfortable. There's nothing fit to offer you in the
house, and there's not a bed that's been slept in for I don't know how
long."
"Never mind," said my father cheerfully. "The moon is up already, and
we shall get home I trust before the snow begins to fall. Will you
tell the man to get the horses out?"
When she returned from taking the message, she came up to my father
and said, in a loud whisper,
"Is he in a bad way, sir?"
"He is dying," answered my father.
[Illustration]
"I know that," she returned. "He'll be gone before the morning. But
that's not what I meant. Is he in a bad way for the other world?
That's what I meant, sir."
"Well, my good woman, after a life like his, we are only too glad to
remember what our Lord told us--not to judge. I do think he is ashamed
and sorry for his past life. But it's not the wrong he has done in
former time that stands half so much in his way as his present
fondness for what he counts his own. It seems like to break his heart
to leave all his little bits of property--particularly the money he
has saved; and yet he has some hope that Jesus Christ will be kind
enough to pardon him. I am afraid he will find himself very miserable
though, when he has not one scrap left to call his own--not a
pocket-knife even.
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