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- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
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- honored humanity, with sly significance, he glanced toward his wife;
then, a little changing his voice, instantly continued--"that fine
horse I am going to buy?"
"I guess," said the dame, with a strange, subdued sort of inefficient
pleasantry--"I guess that fine horse you sometimes so merrily dream of
will long stay in the Squire's stall. But sometimes his man gives me a
Sunday ride."
"A Sunday ride!" said I.
"You see," resumed Coulter, "wife loves to go to church; but the
nighest is four miles off, over yon snowy hills. So she can't walk it;
and I can't carry her in my arms, though I have carried her up-stairs
before now. But, as she says, the Squire's man sometimes gives her a
lift on the road; and for this cause it is that I speak of a horse I
am going to have one of these fine sunny days. And already, before
having it, I have christened it 'Martha.' But what am I about? Come,
come, wife! The pudding! Help the gentleman, do! The Squire! the
Squire!--think of the Squire! and help round the pudding. There,
one--two--three mouthfuls must do me. Good-by, wife. Good-by, sir, I'm
off."
And, snatching his soaked hat, the noble Poor Man hurriedly went out
into the soak and the mire.
I suppose now, thinks I to myself, that Blandmour would poetically say,
He goes to take a Poor Man's saunter.
"You have a fine husband," said I to the woman, as we were now left
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.
- title
- Chunk 17