. And now to be marched off! How can I go a-bed
and sleep, and my heart jumps so? It ain't Christian to ask me to. I got
a heart, dear, I have. Do give a bit of comfort to it. Only a word of my
Dahly to me."

The farmer replied: "Mother, let's have no woman's nonsense. What we've
got to bear, let us bear. And you go on your knees to the Lord, and
don't be a heathen woman, I say. Get up. There's a Bible in your
bedroom. Find you out comfort in that."

"No, William, no!" she sobbed, still kneeling: "there ain't a dose o'
comfort there when poor souls is in the dark, and haven't got patience
for passages. And me and my Bible!--how can I read it, and not know my
ailing, and a'stract one good word, William? It'll seem only the devil's
shootin' black lightnings across the page, as poor blessed granny used
to say, and she believed witches could do it to you in her time, when
they was evil-minded. No! To-night I look on the binding of the Holy
Book, and I don't, and I won't, I sha' n't open it."

This violent end to her petition was wrought by the farmer grasping her
arm to bring her to her feet.

"Go to bed, mother."

"I shan't open it," she repeated, defiantly. "And it ain't," she
gathered up her comfortable fat person to assist the words "it ain't
good--no, not the best pious ones--I shall, and will say it! as is
al'ays ready to smack your face with the Bible."

"Now, don't ye be angry," said the farmer.

She softened instantly.

"William, dear, I got fifty-seven pounds sterling, and odd shillings, in
a Savings-bank, and that I meant to go to Dahly, and not to yond' dark
thing sitting there so sullen, and me in my misery; I'd give it to you
now for news of my darlin'. Yes, William; and my poor husband's cottage,
in Sussex--seventeen pound per annum. That, if you'll be goodness
itself, and let me hear a word."

"Take her upstairs," said the farmer to Rhoda, and Rhoda went by her
and took her hands, and by dint of pushing from behind and dragging in
front, Mrs. Sumfit, as near on a shriek as one so fat and sleek
could be, was ejected. The farmer and Robert heard her struggles
and exclamations along the passage, but her resistance subsided very
suddenly.

"There's power in that girl," said the farmer, standing by the shut
door.

Robert thought so, too. It affected his imagination, and his heart began
to beat sickeningly.

"Perhaps she promised to speak--what has happened, whatever that may
be," he suggested.