“Oh, burn the stack!”
“I’ll tell you why. I couldn’t help it. Did you know my Joan? Her was the purtiest little maid in all Coombe. Her’s dead now.”
“Dead, Roger!”
“Ay, I reckon; died to-night in her mother’s lap; died o’ want, and cold, and nakedness. Us had no bread till Pass’n gave me that loaf--and no coals, and no blankets, and naught but rags. The little maid has been sick these three weeks. Us can’t have no doctor. I’ve been out o’ work three months, and now the parish must bury her. Joan, she wor my very darling, nigh my heart.”
He was silent. The boat he was in chattered more vigorously against that of Kate.
“I knowed,” he pursued, “I knowed what ha’ done it. It wor Farmer Pooke throwed me out of employ--took the bread out o’ our mouths. Us had a bit o’ candle-end, and I wor down on my knees beside my wife, and little Joan lyin’ on her lap; and wife and I neither could speak; us couldn’t pray; us just watched the poor little maid passin’ away.”
He was silent, but Kate heard that he was sobbing. Presently he said, “You’ve been kind. If you’ve got a bit o’ handkercher or what else, wipe my face with it, will’y. There’s something, the dew or the salt water from the oars, splashed over it.”
The girl passed her shawl over the man’s face.
“Thank’y kindly,” he said. Then he drew a long breath and continued his story. “Well, now, when wife and I saw as little Joan were gone home, then her rose up and never said a word, but laid her on our ragged bed; and I--I had the candle-end in my hand, and I put it into the lantern, and I went out. My heart were full o’ gall and bitterness, and my head were burning. I know’d well who’d killed our Joan; it were Farmer Pooke as turned me out o’ employ all about a bit o’ nonsense I said and never meant, and when I wor sober never remembered to ha’ said; so, mad wi’ sorrow and anger, I--I gone and done it with that there bit o’ candle-end.”
“Oh, Roger, Roger! you have made matters much worse for yourself, for all.”