I think that the young gentleman burnt his own hands not a little
in tearing off the burning clothes which his coat couldn't cover, but he
said it was just nothing, and wouldn't let me look at them even before
he went away."
"What a brave, noble fellow!" exclaimed Charles. "I should like to have
made his acquaintance."
"So indeed should I," cried Anna. "Do not you know his name, Jenny?"
"No, my sweet miss, I don't," answered the Welshwoman. "But I think I
know where it's written, and that's where the names of the cruel, and
selfish, and heartless will never be found."
"God bless him! God bless him!" said a deep voice from the bed.
The children started; it was the voice of Old Moggy. They had not
supposed she was listening, much less that she was capable of speaking.
The rest of the children remembered William's remarks on the previous
evening, and all eyes were turned on him. He stood white as ashes, and
trembling in every limb. While they had before been speaking, the
window had been darkened by a person passing before it. William had
remarked it, and he had taken it into his head that it was that of a
person come to carry him off to prison for his misdeeds. The rest had
been so interested in what they were hearing that they had not observed
that a stranger was near them.
"Ye said that she knows the truth; ay, that she does, and practises what
the Word of Truth tells us; for instead of railing she blesses, and from
her heart forgives them who have ill-treated her," said Jenny. "Poor,
harmless, weary soul that she is! Those young ones who stand there can
know little of the sorrows and trials she has been called on to endure.
She has seen loss of parents, and property, and husband, and child, and
her good name, and all that we think makes life pleasant; and now that
she has found her way to this lone place, to die in peace, the Evil One
has made these lads come up here to mock and torment her. I mind
reading of a good prophet going to a certain village in a foreign land,
and the lads came out and mocked him, and called him old bald-head, and
what do ye think happened? Why, two she-bears came out of a wood and
destroyed forty and two of them. I don't mean to say that Old Moggy is
like the old prophet, but yet she is aged and friendless; and those who
abuse and ill-treat her are, in the eyes of the Almighty, doing a great
wickedness; that they are, I'm sure."
While Jenny was speaking, the lips
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