"But I'm the worst—the worst that ever was. I'm scum, I'm dirt"—and out poured more of the turbid stream, till Pete sickened.
"If I could only see a parson," sobbed Albert at last.
"A parson?"
"Yes—maybe he could comfort me. Oh, I know I've mocked 'em and scoffed 'em all my life, but I reckon they could do summat for me now."
In his weakness he had gone back not only to the religious terrors of his youth, but to the Sussex dialect he had long forgotten.
Pete scarcely knew what to do. He had become used to his brother's gradual disintegration, but this utter collapse was terrifying. He offered his own ministrations.
"You've told me a dunnamany things, and you can tell me as many more as you justabout like"—touching the climax of self-sacrifice.
But Albert's weak mind clung to its first idea with scared tenacity. He was still raving about it when Pete came in from his work that evening.
"I want a parson," he moaned, throwing himself about the bed, and his terrors seemed to grow upon him as the darkness grew.
Neither of them slept that night. Albert was half delirious, and obsessed by the thought of hell. The room looked out on Boarzell, and he became convinced that the swart, tufted mass outlined against the sprinkled stars was hell, the country of the lost. He pictured himself wandering over and over it in torment. He said he saw fire on it, scaring the superstitious Pete out of his life.