knowed what he were doin',
my 'usband did.

"He never missed goin' to Shepherd Toller's hut mornin' nor night. He
took him buttermilk a'most every day; and oh, my word, the lies as he
told about what he wanted it for! I've known him walk miles to get it.
And then he'd sometimes sit up wi' him half the night tryin' to get him
to sleep, rubbin' his back and his head. And the things my 'usband used
to tell me about his sufferin's--oh, sir, it were somethin' awful!...
Once my 'usband asked him if he'd let him tell the doctor, and Shepherd
Toller a'most went out o' his mind with fright. 'I've got to see it
through, Polly,' he sez to me; 'but I doubt if it won't be the death o'
me.'

"Shepherd Toller took to his bed the very day as my 'usband met him, and
never left it, leastways he never went outside the hut again. I wanted
to go myself and look after him a bit in the daytime. But my 'usband
wouldn't let me go. 'He's no sight for you to look at, missis,' he sez.
'Except for the pain, his mind's at rest. Besides, there's nobody but me
knows how to talk to him, and there's nobody but me as he wants to see.
You can't make him no comfortabler than he is.'

"But it were a terrible strain on my poor 'usband, and there's not a
doubt that it would ha' killed him there and then if it had lasted much
longer. It were about three weeks before the end come, and nivver shall
I forget that night--no, not if I was to live to be a thousand years
old.

"My master come home about ten o'clock, lookin' just like a man as were
walkin' in his sleep. I couldn't get him to take notice o' nothin', and
when I put his supper on the table he seemed as though he hardly knowed
what it were for. He didn't eat more than two mouthfuls, and then he
turned his chair round to the fire, tremblin' all over.

"After a bit I sees him drop asleep like. So I sez to myself, 'I'll just
go upstairs to warm his bed for him, and then I'll come down and wake
him up,' and I begins to get the warmin'-pan ready. He were mutterin'
all sorts of things; but I didn't take much notice o' that, because
that's what he allus did when he went to sleep in his chair. However, I
did notice that he kep' mutterin' something about a dog.

"Soon he wakes up, kind o' startled, and sez, 'Missis, let that dog in;
he won't let me get a wink o' sleep.' 'You silly man,' I sez, 'you've
been fast asleep for three-quarters of a' hour.' 'Why,' he sez, 'I've
been wide awake all the time, listen