"You need not," he answered. "The man on whom those clear eyes rest
lovingly will be worthy of it all. If he were not, they would be the
first to find him out."
"But need that make any difference?" she asked. "Perhaps though I
found him out I should love him just the same."
"Not unless you loved him first, Grizel."
"No," she said at once again. "I am not really afraid of love," she
whispered to him. "You have made me so happy that I am afraid of
nothing."
Yet she wondered a little that he was not afraid to die, but when she
told him this he smiled and said: "Everybody fears death except those
who are dying." And when she asked if he had anything on his mind, he
said: "I leave the world without a care. Not that I have seen all I
would fain have seen. Many a time, especially this last year, when I
have seen the mother in you crooning to some neighbour's child, I have
thought to myself, 'I don't know my Grizel yet; I have seen her in the
bud only,' and I would fain--" He broke off. "But I have no fears," he
said. "As I lie here, with you sitting by my side, looking so serene,
I can say, for the first time for half a century, that I have nothing
on my mind.
"But, Grizel, I should have married," he told her. "The chief lesson
my life has taught me is that they are poor critturs--the men who
don't marry."
"If you had married," she said, "you might never have been able to
help me."
"It is you who have helped me," he replied. "God sent the child; He is
most reluctant to give any of us up. Ay, Grizel, that's what my life
has taught me, and it's all I can leave to you." The last he saw of
her, she was holding his hand, and her eyes were dry, her teeth were
clenched; but there was a brave smile upon her face, for he had told
her that it was thus he would like to see her at the end. After his
death, she continued to live at the old house; he had left it to her
("I want it to remain in the family," he said), with all his savings,
which were quite sufficient for the needs of such a manager. He had
also left her plenty to do, and that was a still sweeter legacy.
And the other Jacobites, what of them? Hi, where are you, Corp? Here
he comes, grinning, in his spleet new uniform, to demand our tickets
of us. He is now the railway porter. Since Tommy left Thrums "steam"
had arrived in it, and Corp had by nature such a gift for giving
luggage the twist which breaks everything inside as you dump it down
that he was ine
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