Chapter Twenty Seven.
“God liveth ever,
Wherefore, soul, despair thou never.”
Brownrig was better in mind and in body than when Allison first came, but he was far from strong. His mind was not quite clear, and it was not easy for him “to put this and that together,” in a way to satisfy himself, when the doctor went away. He was already “muddled,” as he called it, and he did the best thing he could have done in the circumstances, he shut his eyes and fell asleep.
Before he woke Allison came in, and when he looked up, he saw her sitting with her work on her lap, and yesterday’s newspaper in her hand, reading: and smiling to herself as she read.
“Weel, what’s the news the day?” said he.
Allison did not start or show the surprise she fell at being thus addressed.
“Will I read it to you?” she asked.
She read about the markets and the news of the day; but whether he were getting the good of it all or not, she could not say. When she thought she had read enough, she laid down the paper and took up her work as usual.
That was the beginning. All the days passed like this day for a while, except that a book took the place of a newspaper sometimes. And by and by, the best of books had a minute or two given to it—rarely more than a minute or two. Brownrig listened to that as he listened to the rest, willingly, and sometimes with interest, when she chanced to light on a part which had not been quite forgotten in the long careless years which had passed since the time his dead mother used to read it with him and his little sisters, when they were children at home. When he looked interested, or made a remark on any part of what she read, Allison went over it again, and now and then took courage to speak a word or two of Him who “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows,” and who died that we might live. He listened always in silence. Whether he was ever moved by the words could not be told, for he gave no sign.