With her broken
chilblains she could not stand the snow; at any rate, the chill struck
upwards. Well, she has been in bliss three years, three whole years, and
how thankful I ought to be for that. How glad she will be to see Barbara
too, if it pleases God in His mercy to take Barbara; she always was her
favourite sister. I ought to remember that; I ought to remember that
what I lose here I gain there, that my store is always growing in
Heaven. But I can't, for I am a man still. Oh! curse it all! I can't,
and like Job I wish I'd never been born. Job got a new family and
was content, but that's their Eastern way. It's different with us
Englishmen."
He stumbled on for a hundred yards or more, vacuously, almost drunkenly,
for the hideous agony that he was enduring half paralysed his brain, and
by its very excess was bringing him some temporary relief. He looked at
the raging sea to his right, and in a vague fashion wished that it had
swallowed him. He looked at the kind earth of the ploughed field to his
left, and wished vividly, for the idea was more familiar, that six feet
of it lay above him. Then he remembered that just beyond that sand-heap
he had found a plover's nest with two eggs in it fifty years ago when
he was a boy, and had taken one egg and left the other, or rather had
restored it because the old bird screamed so pitifully about him.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276