Then it all came upon her. They had sown, but they might not reap; they had planted, but they might not gather; on the land they had held so long they were trespassers, and if they still remained in the old homestead it was only because there is nothing more difficult than to get rid of people who have determined to remain.
Amos Scott had so determined; but the law was closing him in slowly, surely.
It was eating his substance first; while he had a pound in the traditional stocking, or the ability to borrow a pound—while he had a shoe to his foot and a shirt to his back, it refrained from cutting short his torture, but once let the cruise fail, and the law would scourge him with scorpions out of that once happy garden which never again might seem like paradise to Amos or one of his family.
Out of the sunlight Grace passed into the house, where, by reason of the glare from which she had come, she could at first scarcely distinguish any object; but after a second or two she beheld Mrs. Scott, aged and haggard, who, in her hands holding a coat of her husband’s she had been engaged in patching, rose and bade her visitor welcome.
She was quite alone; a rare thing in that populous house. Inside as out the same stillness prevailed, a stillness like unto the Egyptian darkness, inasmuch as it could be felt.
The first words uttered were by Mrs. Scott, in sympathy for Miss Moffat’s affliction; but Grace, though her burden seemed heavy, knew the dead had no need of help or remembrance, and here face to face with her was at least one human being who had.
“Tell me about yourselves,” she said, passing her handkerchief across the large soft eyes that would encourage tears to shelter themselves under the white lids and long lashes. “We cannot do anything more for him. It was a great shock. I sometimes seem as if I were unable to realize it even yet; but it is true, and I must learn to bear the greatest trouble God sends one of his creatures.”
“The greatest, Miss?” said Mrs. Scott inquiringly; she was sympathetic and respectful, but she could not quite fall in with this opinion.
She had her trouble, and if she heard that the trouble of another might be greater, who shall blame her for being slow of belief.
There cannot be much doubt that the man who has broken his leg feels sceptical when told that his next neighbour who has broken his ankle is in worse case than he. As a matter of theory, people may sympathize with the griefs of their fellow-creatures, but as a matter of fact the only sorrows which are ever thoroughly understood are those a man has himself to bear; and this is reasonable enough, remembering that after the lapse of even a short time, a man finds it difficult to recall vividly the anguish and the shame and the agony he may once have been obliged to pass through.