He shook his head. “I saw the woman again, nobody else. She heard what I had to say about the child, and she never said ‘Thank ye.’”
The man had been getting on his feet, and took up the skewers, that were all tied together with string, and the stick. But he reeled as he stood, and would have fallen again but for Tod. Tod gave him his arm.
“We are in for it, Johnny,” said he aside to me. “Pity but I could be put in a picture—the Samaritan helping the destitute!”
“I’d not accept of ye, sir, but that I have a child sick at home, and want to get to her. There’s a piece of bread in my pocket that was give me at a cottage to-day.”
“Is your child sure to get well?” asked Tod, after a pause; wondering whether he could say anything of what had occurred, so as to break the news.
The man gazed right away into the distance, as if searching for an answer in the far-off star shining there.
“There’s been a death-look in her face this day and night past, master. But the Lord’s good to us all.”
“And sometimes, when He takes children, it is done in mercy,” said Tod. “Heaven is a better place than this.”
“Ay,” rejoined the man, who was leaning heavily on Tod, and could never have got home without him, unless he had crawled on hands and knees. “I’ve been sickly on and off for this year past; worse lately; and I’ve thought at times that if my own turn was coming, I’d be glad to see my children gone afore me.”