ake long tale of it--for this thing is beyond me, through want of true
experience--I went and fetched his Gwenny forth from the back kitchen,
where she was fighting, as usual, with our Betty.

"Come along, you little Vick," I said, for so we called her; "I have a
message to you, Gwenny, from the Lord in heaven."

"Don't 'ee talk about He," she answered; "Her have long forgatten me."

"That He has never done, you stupid. Come, and see who is in the
cowhouse."

Gwenny knew; she knew in a moment. Looking into my eyes, she knew; and
hanging back from me to sigh, she knew it even better.

She had not much elegance of emotion, being flat and square all over;
but none the less for that her heart came quick, and her words came
slowly.

"Oh, Jan, you are too good to cheat me. Is it joke you are putting upon
me?"

I answered her with a gaze alone; and she tucked up her clothes and
followed me because the road was dirty. Then I opened the door just wide
enough for the child to to go her father, and left those two to have it
out, as might be most natural. And they took a long time about it.

Meanwhile I needs must go and tell my Lorna all the matter; and her joy
was almost as great as if she herself had found a father. And the
wonder of the whole was this, that I got all the credit; of which not
a thousandth part belonged by right and reason to me. Yet so it almost
always is. If I work for good desert, and slave, and lie awake at night,
and spend my unborn life in dreams, not a blink, nor wink, nor inkling
of my labour ever tells. It would have been better to leave unburned,
and to keep undevoured, the fuel and the food of life. But if I have
laboured not, only acted by some impulse, whim, caprice, or anything;
or even acting not at all, only letting things float by; piled upon me
commendations, bravoes, and applauses, almost work me up to tempt once
again (though sick of it) the ill luck of deserving.

Without intending any harm, and meaning only good indeed, I had now done
serious wrong to Uncle Reuben's prospects. For Captain Carfax was full
as angry at the trick played on him as he was happy in discovering the
falsehood and the fraud of it. Nor could I help agreeing with him, when
he told me all of it, as with tears in his eyes he did, and ready to be
my slave henceforth; I could not forbear from owning that it was a low
and heartless trick, unworthy of men who had families; and the recoil
whereof was well deserved, w