But
I'll be civil--so good night.' He never said a word, but went off
as black as thunder, slamming the door after him. The master
called me in to prayers, but I can't say I could put my mind to
them, for my heart was beating so. However, it was a comfort to
have had an offer of holy matrimony; and though it flustered me,
it made me think more of myself. In the night, I began to wonder
if I'd not been cruel and hard to him. You see, I were
feverish-like; and the old song of Barbary Allen would keep
running in my head, and I thought I were Barbary, and he were
young Jemmy Gray, and that maybe he'd die for love of me; and I
pictured him to mysel', lying on his death-bed, with his face
turned to the wall 'wi' deadly sorrow sighing,' and I could ha'
pinched mysel' for having been so like cruel Barbary Allen. And
when I got up next day, I found it hard to think on the real
Jerry Dixon I had seen the night before, apart from the sad and
sorrowful Jerry I thought on a-dying, when I were between
sleeping and waking. And for many a day I turned sick, when I
heard the passing bell, for I thought it were the bell
loud-knelling which were to break my heart wi' a sense of what
I'd missed in saying 'No' to Jerry, and so idling him with
cruelty. But in less than a three week, I heard parish bells
a-ringing merrily for a wedding; and in the course of the
morning, some one says to me, 'Hark! how the bells is ringing for
Jerry Dixon's wedding!' And, all on a sudden, he changed back
again from a heart-broken young fellow, like Jemmy Gray, into a
stout, middle-aged man, ruddy-complexioned, with a wart on his
left cheek like life!"
Sally waited for some exclamation at the conclusion of her tale;
but receiving none, she stepped softly to the bedside, and there
lay Ruth, peaceful as death, with her baby on her breast.
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