“Mr. Todhetley said you ought to have stayed with us for three months. He says it often still.”
“I believe,” he said, solemnly lifting his hand, “that if I could have had entire rest then for two or three months, it would have set me up for life. Heaven hears me say it.”
And what a dreadful thing it now seemed that he had not!
“I don’t repine. My lot seems a hard one, and I sometimes feel sick and weary when I dwell upon it. I have tried to do my duty: I could but keep on and work, as God knows. There was no other course open to me.”
I supposed there was not.
“I am no worse off than many others, Johnny. There are men breaking down every day from incessant application and want of needful rest. Well for them if their hearts don’t break with it!”
And, to judge by the tone he spoke in, it was as much as to say that his heart had broken.
“I am beginning to dwell less on it now,” he went on. “Perhaps it is that I am too weak to feel so keenly. Or that Christ’s words are being indeed realized to me: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ God does not forsake us in our trouble, Johnny, once we have learnt to turn to Him.”
Mrs. Marks came into the room with the cup of arrowroot. The boy had run down to tell her I was there. She was very pleasant and cheerful: you could be at home with her at once. While he was waiting for the arrowroot to cool, he leant back in his chair and dropped into a doze.
“It must have been a frightful cold that he caught,” I whispered to her.