"But that will never do, Harry. Why, what would he think of us if he comes in and finds us sitting down in his parlour just as if the place belonged to us?"
"It's all right, mother, I will make it right with him; he's a good fellow, is the new gaffer—a first-rate fellow."
"Is he, now?" John asked, interested, as he and Sarah, seeing nothing else to do, sat down. "And his name is John Holl, just the same as mine?"
"Just the same, John, and he's not unlike you either. Now, when I tell you what a kind action he did once, you will see the sort of fellow he is. Once, a good many years ago, when he wasn't as well off as he is now, when he was just a hard-working man, earning his weekly pay, a poor woman with a child fell down dying at his door. Well, you know, other people would have sent for a policeman and had her taken off to the workhouse, but he and his wife took her into their house and tended her till she died."
"That was a right-down good thing," John said, quite oblivious of the fact that he too had done such an action.
Sarah did not speak, but gave a little gasping cry, and threw her apron, which she wore indoors and out, over her head, a sure sign with her that she was going to indulge in what she called "a good cry." John looked at her in astonishment.
"And more than that, John," Harry went on, "they took in the child, and brought it up as one of their own; and though afterwards they had a large family, they never made him feel that he was a burden to them, though he grew up a cripple, and was able to do nothing to repay them for all their goodness. Well, at last the boy's friends were found. They had lots of money, and the time came at last when they bought a business for John Holl; and when he came, there the cripple boy was, sitting at the fire, to welcome them, and say, 'Welcome, father! and welcome, mother!'" and Harry held out his hands to them both.
Even now John Holl did not understand. He was naturally dull of comprehension, and the loud sobbing of his wife so bewildered and confounded him, that it divided his attention with Harry's narrative.
"Yes, Harry," he said, "it's all very nice. But what's come to you, Sarah? What are you making all this fuss about? We shall be having the new master coming in and finding you sobbing and rocking yourself like a mad woman. Cheer up, old woman. What is it?"
"Don't you see, John," Sarah sobbed out, "don't you see Harry has been telling you your own story? Don't you see that it is you he has been talking about, and that you are 'John Holl, Dust Contractor'?"