"Look here," he said. "You ent goin' to tell? That's your las' word, is it?"
The young woman looked down on the bundle and nodded her head.
"There, that'll do. If you weant, you weant; I've tek'n 'ee back, an' us must fit and make the best o't. The cheeld'll never be fit for much—born lame like that. But 'twas to be, I s'pose."
Lizzie sat dumb, but hugged the bundle closer.
"'Tis like a judgment. If your mother'd been spared, 'twudn' have happened. But 'twas to be, I s'pose. The Lord's ways be past findin' out."
He woke up and struck the donkey across the rump.
"Gwan you! Gee up! What d'ee mean by stoppin' like that?"
XXIII
THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP
The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words. He and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below the light-house, peering into its foundations. Here and there, where weed coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand which Taffy held out. Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff. The round of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long pinch.