- end_line
- 6271
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 6221
- text
- together.
‘William loves me this day as on the wedding-day, sir. Some hasty words,
but never a harsh one. I wish I were better and stronger for his sake.
And, oh! sir, both for his sake and mine’ (and the soft blue beautiful
eyes turned into two well-springs), ‘how I wish little William and
Martha lived--it is so lonely-like now. William named after him, and
Martha for me.’
When a companion’s heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to
do nothing. I sat looking down on my as yet untasted pudding.
‘You should have seen little William, sir. Such a bright, manly boy,
only six years old--cold, cold now!’
Plunging my spoon into the pudding, I forced some into my mouth to stop
it.
‘And little Martha--Oh! sir, she was the beauty! Bitter, bitter! but
needs must be borne.’
The mouthful of pudding now touched my palate, and touched it with a
mouldy, briny taste. The rice, I knew, was of that damaged sort sold
cheap; and the salt from the last year’s pork barrel.
‘Ah, sir, if those little ones yet to enter the world were the same
little ones which so sadly have left it; returning friends, not
strangers, strangers, always strangers! Yet does a mother soon learn to
love them; for certain, sir, they come from where the others have gone.
Don’t you believe that, sir? Yes, I know all good people must. But
still, still--and I fear it is wicked, and very black-hearted,
too--still, strive how I may to cheer me with thinking of little William
and Martha in heaven, and with reading Dr. Doddridge there--still, still
does dark grief leak in, just like the rain through our roof. I am left
so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long, dear William is gone;
and all the damp day long grief drizzles and drizzles down on my soul.
But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and for the rest, manage it as
well as I may.’
Bitter and mouldy is the ‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ groaned I to myself, half
choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go down.
I could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest
sympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to which
there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a
persuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less
to mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could
have dispelled. I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and
honourable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have
been more than declined; charity resented.
- title
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