o the lot of one so old as Jonathan, and made desperate
resolutions to be earlier in the future.

The fire was a good blaze before he entered, limping dismally into the
kitchen. "Nance," said he, "I be all knotted up with the rheumatics;
will you rub me a bit?" She came and rubbed him where and how he bade
her. "This is a cruel thing that old age should be rheumaticky," said
he. "When I was young I stood my turn of the teethache like a man! for
why? because it couldn't last for ever; but these rheumatics come to
live and die with you. Your aunt was took before the time came; never
had an ache to mention. Now I lie all night in my single bed and the
blood never warms in me; this knee of mine it seems like lighted up with
rheumatics; it seems as though you could see to sew by it; and all the
strings of my old body ache, as if devils was pulling 'em. Thank you
kindly; that's someways easier now, but an old man, my dear, has little
to look for; it's pain, pain, pain to the end of the business, and I'll
never be rightly warm again till I get under the sod," he said, and
looked down at her with a face so aged and weary that she had nearly
wept.

"I lay awake all night," he continued; "I do so mostly, and a long walk
kills me. Eh, deary me, to think that life should run to such a puddle!
And I remember long syne when I was strong, and the blood all hot and
good about me, and I loved to run, too--deary me, to run! Well, that's
all by. You'd better pray to be took early, Nance, and not live on till
you get to be like me, and are robbed in your grey old age, your cold,
shivering, dark old age, that's like a winter's morning"; and he
bitterly shuddered, spreading his hands before the fire.

"Come now," said Nance, "the more you say the less you'll like it, Uncle
Jonathan; but if I were you I would be proud for to have lived all your
days honest and beloved, and come near the end with your good name:
isn't that a fine thing to be proud of? Mr. Archer was telling me in
some strange land they used to run races each with a lighted candle, and
the art was to keep the candle burning. Well, now, I thought that was
like life; a man's good conscience is the flame he gets to carry, and if
he comes to the winning-post with that still burning, why, take it how
you will, the man's a hero--even if he was low-born like you and me."

"Did Mr. Archer tell you that?" asked Jonathan.

"No, dear," said she, "that's my own thought about it. He tol