"Awful hard, sir, toward the last; moaning, and calling, and clenching his hands in mortal pain. His sister, she come round—she's a hard one, is that Liza Tyrrett—and she set on at the wife, saying it was her fault that he'd took to go out drinking. That there parson couldn't do nothing with him," concluded the speaker, lowering his voice.
William's breath stood still. "No!"
The man shook his head. "Tyrrett weren't in a frame o' mind for it, sir. He kep' crying out as he had led a bad life, and never thought of God—and them was his last words. It ain't happy, sir, to die like that. It have quite cowed down us as was with him: one gets thinking, sir, what sort of a place it may be, t'other side, where he's gone to."
William lifted his head, a sort of eager hope on his countenance, speaking cheerily. "Could you not let poor Tyrrett's death act as a warning to you?"
There was a dead silence. Five men were present; every one of them leading careless lives. Somehow they did not much like to hear of "warning," although the present moment was one of unusual seriousness.
"Religion is so dreadful dull and gloomy, sir."
"Religion dull and gloomy!" echoed William. "Well, perhaps some people do make a gloomy affair of it; but then I don't think theirs can be the right religion. I do not believe people were sent into the world to be gloomy: time enough for that when troubles come."
"What is religion?" asked one of the men.
"It is a sort of thing that's a great deal better to be felt than talked about," answered William. "I am no parson, and cannot pretend to enlighten you. We might never come to an understanding over it, were we to discuss it all day long. I would rather talk to you of life, and its practical duties."
"Tyrrett said as he had never paid heed to any of his duties. It were his cry over and over again, sir, in the night. He said he had drunk, and swore, and beat his wife, and done just what he oughtn't to ha' done."