"
"She never said a wiser word tan tat," he replied, much gratified.
"Now," sais I, "let me blow this, does it take much wind?"
"No," said Jackson, "not much, try it, Sir."
"Well, I put it to my lips, and played a well-known air on it. "It's
not hard to play, after all, is it, Jackson?"
"No, Sir," said he, looking delighted, "nothing is ard to a man as
knows how, as you do."
"Tom," sais Betty, "don't that do'ee good? Oh, Sir, I ain't eard that
since I left the hold country, it's what the guards has used to be
played in the mail-coaches has was. Oh, Sir, when they comed to the
town, it used to sound pretty; many's the time I have run to the
window to listen to it. Oh, the coaches was a pretty sight, Sir. But
them times is all gone," and she wiped a tear from her eye with the
corner of her apron, a tear that the recollection of early days had
called up from the fountain of her heart.
Oh, what a volume does one stray thought of the past contain within
itself. It is like a rocket thrown up in the night. It suddenly
expands into a brilliant light, and sheds a thousand sparkling
meteors, that scatter in all directions, as if inviting attention each
to its own train. Yes, that one thought is the centre of many, and
awakens them all to painful sensibility. Perhaps it is more like a
vivid flash of lightning, it discloses with intense brightness the
whole landscape, and exhibits, in their minutest form and outline, the
very leaves and flowers that lie hid in the darkness of night.
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