"She hadn't been dead a minute, poor woman, afore Jacob smashed in the door of the room; but he had this consolation from Lawrence Pulleyblank, that his wife had been unconscious for hours and couldn't have known him, even if he'd come in time to see her alive."
"The call on faith gets heavier as we grow older, William. Life, after a certain age, seems no more than a cry for patience and a test of pluck. Don't you think my faith be growing weak; but 'tis only human to be down-daunted sometimes afore the things that happen."
"But when you come to my years, such things be different from what they are to you men in the fifties. As a general rule you'll find great deceits in men and women, deceits done for fineness as well as for poorness of spirit. Those who look to be happiest, Adam, are sometimes only the bravest, and them who have most to grumble at often grumble least. And there be some like dogs, without care, yet, out of their cowardice, will begin to yelp if they see so much as the shadow of a stick."
"He was pretty patient—for him—afore this break-up."
"And will be again, if his mind holds. There's a great strain on his thinking parts for the minute; and I hope they'll stand to him."
"I was a good bit surprised to see she'd gone in along with the Bullstones. I'd have thought now that them, as kept her from him so jealous in life, would have fought to have her buried with her father's family," mused Winter.
"Judith Huxam fell ill after Margery died, and Barlow was in a good deal of trouble for a minute. In fact he found himself too busy to bother about the funeral," answered William.
"All her children stood beside the grave—in fact everybody belonging to her except her mother."
"A funeral be nought to the old witch doctor. When the soul have flown to safety, that's all she troubles for. The dust would be no more to her than the empty acorn shard when the young oak springs up. I wrestled with her once, for I'll always say that if her daughter had come home, she might have been spared; but Judith Huxam treated me as though I was an imp of darkness, with the mark of the toasting-fork on my brow."
George Middleweek overtook them. He, too, was in black and had been at the funeral. With him came Peter Bullstone in a new, black suit.