Colin very gladly took Miss Sowersoft (who was more than usually sour, in consequence of the quantity of employment on her hands) at her word, and, without regarding her message to Palethorpe, with whom he had no desire to change another word at present, he hastened out of the house, and rambled alone about the fields and homestead until dusk.
Several times during this stroll did Colin consider and re-consider the propriety of walking home again without giving his situation any farther trial. That Snitterton was no paradise, and its inhabitants a nest of hornets, he already began to believe; though to quit it before a beginning had been made, however much of ill-promise stared him in the face, would but indifferently accord with the resolutions he had formed in the morning, to undergo any difficulties rather than fail in his determination eventually to do something, not for himself only, but for his mother and Fanny. The advice which the former had given him not twelve hours ago also came vividly to his recollection; the sense of its truth, which experience was even now increasing, materially sharpening its impression on his memory. It was not, however, without some doubts and struggles that he finally resolved to brave the worst,—to stand out until, if it should be so, he could stand out no longer.
Strengthened by these reflections, and relying on his own honesty of intention, our hero returned to the house just as all the labourers had gathered round the kitchen-grate, and were consuming their bread and cheese in the dim twilight. Amongst them was one old man, whose appearance proclaimed that his whole life had been spent in the hard toils of husbandry, but spent almost in vain, since it had provided him with nothing more than the continued means of subsistence, and left him, when worn-out nature loudly declared that his days of labour were past, no other resource but still to toil on, until his trembling hand should finally obtain a cessation in that place which the Creator has appointed for all living. What little hair remained upon his head was long and white; and of the same hue also was his week's beard. But a quiet intelligent grey eye, which looked out with benevolence from under a white penthouse of eyebrow, seemed to repress any feelings of levity that otherwise might arise from his appearance, and to appeal, in the depth of its humanity, from the helplessness of that old wreck of manhood, to the strength of those who were now what once he was, for assistance and support.
“Ay, my boy!” said old George, as Colin entered, and a seat was made for him near the old man, “thou looks a bit different to me; though I knew the time when I was bonny as thou art.”
As he raised the bread he was eating to his mouth, his hand trembled like a last withered leaf, which the next blast will sweep away for ever. There was so much natural kindness in the old man's tone, that instantaneously, and almost unconsciously, the comparison between Miss Sowersoft and her man Samuel, who had spoken to him in the afternoon, and poor old George, was forced upon Colin's mind. In reply to the old man's concluding remark, Colin observed, “Yes, sir, I dare say; but that is a long while ago now.”
“Ay, ay, thou's right, boy,—it is a long while. I've seen more than I shall ever see again, and done more than I shall ever do again.”
Mr. Palethorpe, who sat in the home-made easy-chair, while the old man occupied a fourlegged stool, burst into a laugh. “You 're right there, George,” he retorted. “Though you never did much since I knowed you, you 'll take right good care you 'll not do as much again. Drat your idle old carcase! you don't earn half the bread you 're eating.”
The old man looked up,—not angry, nor yet seeking for pity. “Well, perhaps not; but it is none the sweeter for that, I can assure you. If I can't work as I did once, it's no fault of mine. We can get no more out of a nut than its kernel; and there's nought much but the shell left of me now.”
“Yes, yes,” returned Palethorpe, “you don't like it, George, and you'll not do it. Dang your good-for-nothing old limbs! you 'll come to the work'us at last, I know you will!”
“Nay, I hope not,” observed the old man, somewhat sorrowfully. “As I've lived out so long, I still hope, with God's blessing on my hands, though they can't do much, to manage to die out.”