sooner see her dead body stretched afore me,--and
I loved her a'most as well as any father ever loved his da'ter,--I'd
sooner a see'd her brought home to the door stiff and stark than know
her to be the thing she is." His hesitation had now given way to
emphasis, and he raised his hand as he spoke. The Vicar caught it and
held it in his own, and strove to find some word to say as the old
man paused in his speech. But to Jacob Brattle it was hard for a
clergyman to find any word to say on such an occasion. Of what use
could it be to preach of repentance to one who believed nothing; or
to tell of the opportunity which forgiveness by an earthly parent
might afford to the sinner of obtaining lasting forgiveness
elsewhere? But let him have said what he might, the miller would not
have listened. He was full of that which lay upon his own heart. "If
they only know'd what them as cares for 'em 'd has to bear, maybe
they'd think a little. But it ain't natural they should know, Muster
Fenwick, and one's a'most tempted to say that a man 'd better have no
child at all."

"Think of your son George, Mr. Brattle, and of Mrs. Jay."

"What's them to me? He sends the girl a twenty-pun'-note, and I wish
he'd a kep' it. As for t'other, she wouldn't let the girl inside her
door! It's here she has to come."

"What comfort would you have, Mr. Brattle, without Fanny?"

"Fanny! I'm not saying nothing against Fanny. Not but what she hadn't
no business to let the girl into the house in the middle of the night
without saying a word to me."

"Would you have had her leave her sister outside in the cold and damp
all night?"

"Why didn't she come and ax? All the same, I ain't a saying nowt
again Fanny. But, Muster Fenwick, if you ever come to have one foot
bad o' the gout, it won't make you right to know that the other
ain't got it. Y'll have the pain a gnawing of you from the bad foot
till you clean forget all the rest o' your body. It's so with me, I
knows."

"What can I say to you, Mr. Brattle? I do feel for you. I do,--I do."

"Not a doubt on it, Muster Fenwick. They all on 'em feels for me.
They all on 'em knows as how I'm bruised and mangled a'most as though
I'd fallen through into that water-wheel. There ain't one in all
Bull'ompton as don't know as Jacob Brattle is a broken man along of
his da'ter that is a--"

"Silence, Mr. Brattle. You shall not say it. She is not that;--at any
rate not now. Have you no knowledge that sin may be