“This is none of your snow-broth, Meggy,” said the
mother, “it's warming, it's as good as the Widow's bitterbags.”

“Don't you touch it,” said Chilion, who had been screwing
and snapping the strings of his violin.

“Yes, drink, Peggy,” said Hash, thrusting his slavery lips
close to her ear. “He'll bring some more, he likes ye. He
wants you to.”

Margaret started from him, “I can't,” she said, “It won't
let me.”

“What won't let you, dear?” asked her father, drawing her
between his knees, and patting her head.

“She's always a dreaming,” said her mother, “she is a
born bat, and flies off every night nobody knows where. And
in the day time I can't get her to quilling, but she's up and
away to the Widow's, or to the Pond, or on the Head, or
somewheres. She gets all my threads to string up her poses;
she's as bad as a hang-bird that steals my yarn on the grass.”

“Did'nt I do all the spools?” enquired the child.

“Yes, you did,” responded the father, “you are a nice gal.
Hush! Let us hear our son Chilion; he speaks well.”

Chilion played, and they were silent.

“Now it's your turn my daughter,” said Pluck, “you will
play if you won't drink.”

Chilion held the instrument, while Margaret taking the bow
executed some popular airs with considerable spirit and precision.
“Now for the cat, child;” so she imitated the cat,
then the song-sparrow, then Obed crying.

At this, and especially the last, there was a general shout.
The Master seemed highly surprised and pleased. “A megalopsical
child!” he exclaimed. Margaret, with blushes
and tremors, glad to have succeeded, more glad to escape her
tormentors, ran away and amused herself with Dick her
squirrel, whom she was teaching to ride on Bull the dog's
back. The flask having been drained, the keg was brought
forward from the chimney wall.

“Here's to Miss Amy,” said Pluck, ogling the Master.

“Mehercule!” exclaimed the latter, “you forget the propitiatory
oblation. We must first propose his Majesty the
King of Puppetdom, defender by the grace of God of England,
France, and America; the most serene, serene, most
puissant, puissant, high, illustrious, noble, honorable, venerable,
wise, and prudent Princes, Burgomasters, Counsellors,
Governors, Committees of the said realm, whether ecclesiastical

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

or secular; and the most celebrated Punch and Judy of our
worthy town of Livingston, Parson Welles and Deacon Hadlock,
to whom be all reverence.”

Pluck. “Amen. I stroke my beard, and crook my hamstrings
as low as any one.”

The Master. “Your promising daughter, Mistress Hart.”

Mistress Hart. “Long life to you, and many visits from
you.”

Hash. “I say yes to that; and here's for Peggy to Obed.”

The Master. “Miss Sibyl Radney.”

“How you color, Hash!” exclaimed his mother. “Hang
your nose under your chin, and it would equal old Gobbler's
wattles. Put you into the dyetub, and Meg won't have to get
any more log-wood. There now, Meggy must go down for
some copperas this very afternoon.”

“Odzbodkins! You won't spoil our sport,” cried her husband.
“Your crotchets are always coming in like a fox into
a hen-roost.”

“I have work in hand that must be done,” replied his wife.
“Panguts!” she exclaimed, raising her voice and her fist at
the same time, “what do you do? lazying about here like a
mud-turtle nine days after it's killed. You may whip the cat
ten years, and you won't earn enough to stitch your own rags
with.—I have to tie up your vines, or you would have been
blown from the poles long since.”

“Dearest Maria,” began Pluck.

“Don't deary me with your dish-cloth tongue,” said Brown
Moll; “you had better go to trencher-scraping, and I'll take
care of the family.”

While Mistress Hart was entertaining her spouse in this
manner, for it seemed to be entertainment to him, the Master
called Margaret, and asked her to spell some words he named
to her, which she did very correctly. “You must certainly
have a new spelling-book,” said he. “And now I want you
to repeat the Laplander's Ode.” She began as follows:

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

“I think I must go,” said the Master.

“And I will go with you,” said Margaret.

“Here are the eggs,” added her mother, “Deacon Penrose
must give a shilling a dozen. One pound of copperas, six
skeins of No. nine, half a pound of snuff, the rest in tobacco.”

Margaret, wearing in addition to her usual dress, a pair of
moccasins, which an Indian who came sometimes to the Pond
gave her, called Bull and started off. Hash, in no unusual
fit, ordered the dog back.

“Woman! woman!” cried Pluck, “the keg is out, it is
all gone.”

“Let the yarn go,” said her mother, “and get it in rum.”

“She will bring home some of the good book,” said Pluck
to Hash, “the real white-eye, you know. Let her take the
dog.”

Her brother yielded and she went on with Bull and the
Master; the latter, having grown a little wavering and muddled
by liquor, taking the child's hand.

There were two ways to the village, one around by No 4,
the other directly across through the woods; the distance by
the former course was nearly four miles, that by the latter, as
we have said, about two; and at the present season of the
year, the most eligible. This they took; they went through
the Mowing, traversed a beautiful grove of walnuts, blackbirches,
and beeches, and came to the Bridge so called, a
large tree lying across the small brook Margaret encountered
on her way to the Widow's. This stream, having its rise
among the hills on the north of the Pond, and descending to
the village, at the present point, flowed through a deep fissure
in the rocks. The branches of the tree rose perpendicularly,
and a hand rail was fastened from one to another.

“Danger menaces us, my child,” sighed the Master.

“Give me one of your hands,” said Margaret, “hold on by
the rail with the other, shut your eyes, that is the way Pa
does.”

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

“How it shakes!” exclaimed the Master. “It would be
dreadful to fall here! How deep it is! My head swims, my
brain giddies, I am getting old, Margaret. Tempora mutantur
et nos—. When I was young as you I could go anywhere.
Facilis descensus—.”

“You can hold on by Bull, he'll keep you steady. Here
Bull.”

The well trained dog came forward, and the Master leaning
on this tri-fold support, the child's arm, the rail, and the
animal's head, accomplished the pass. They descended
abruptly into a broad ravine, and came up on the higher
banks of the stream. Their course was downward, yet with
alternate pitches and elevations, now by a sheep's track, now
across a rocky ledge, now through the unbroken forest. The
fumes of the liquor subsiding, and the path becoming more
smooth and easy, the Master spake to Margaret of her dreams.

Master. “Dreams come of a multitude of business, says
Solomon.”

Margaret. “What, Solomon Smith? He says that great
folks come of dreams, that children will die, and some be
rich; and people lose their cows, and have new gowns, and
such things. I dream about a great many things, sometimes
about a pretty woman.”

Mas. “A pretty woman! Whom does she look like?”

Mar. “I don't know, I can't tell him.”

Mas. “You; always say you to me. The juveniles and
younkers in the town say him. How does she seem to
you?”

Mar. “She looks somehow as I feel when Ma is good to
me, and she looks pale and sorry as Bull does when Hash
strikes him.”

Mas. “Where do you see her?”

Mar. “Sometimes among the clouds, and sometimes at the
foot of the rainbow.”

Mas. “That is where money grows.”

Mar. “Not money, it is flowers, buttercups, yellow columbine,
liverleaf, devil's ears, and such as I never saw before.”

Mas. “Arum, the Arum! Your covetous friend Obed
won't like it if you get those flowers.”

Mar. “His mother wants to know what the woman does;
if she makes plasters out of the flowers, and if they will cure
worms.”

Mas. “Caustics of aures diaboli! The Devil is no vermifuge,
tell the widow. Ha! ha!”

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

Mar. “But she don't speak to me; she stands in the flowers,
and breaks them off, and they fly away like little birds;
she pricks them into the rainbow, and they grow on it.”

Mas. “Are you not afraid of her?”

Mar. “She tells me not to be.”

Mas. “You said she did not speak to you.”

Mar. “She don't speak, but she tells me things, just as
Bull does. He don't speak, but he tells me when he is hungry,
and when there is anything coming in the woods. Sometimes
she kisses me, but I don't feel her. She goes up on
the rainbow, and I follow her. I see things like people's faces
in the sky, but they look like shadows, and there is music
like what you hear in the pines, but there are no trees, or
violins. She steps off into the clouds. I try to go too, and
there comes along what you call the egret of a thistle, that I
get on to, and it floats with me right into my bed, and I wake
up.” So they discoursed until they issued from the woods,
in what was known as “Deacon Hadlock's Pasture,” an extensive
enclosure reaching to the village, which it overlooked.

The village of Livingston lay at the junction of four streets,
or what had originally been the intersection of two roads,
which widening at the centre, and having their angles
trimmed off, formed an extensive common known as the
Green. In some points of view, the place had an aspect of
freshness and nature; extensive forests meeting the eye in
every direction; farm-houses partially hidden in orchards of
apple trees; the roads rough, ungraded, and divided by
parallel lines of green grass. Yet to one who should be
carried back from the present time, many objects would wear
an old, antiquated and obsolete appearance; the high-pitched
roofs of some of the houses, and jutting upper stories; others
with a long sloping back roof; chimneys like castles,
large, arched, corniced. Here and there was a house in
the then new style, three-storied, with gambrel roof, and
dormar windows. The Meeting-house was not old, but
would now appear so, in its slim tall spire, open belfry, and
swarm of windows. There were Lombardy poplars on the
Green, now so unfashionable, waving like martial plumes; and
interspersed as they were among the spreading willow-like
elms, they formed, on the whole, not a disagreeable picture.
South of the Green was the “Mill,” on Mill Brook, a stream
before adverted to; this was a small distinct cluster of houses.
Beyond the village on the east you could see the River, and

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

its grassy meadows. Livingston was the shire town of the
county of Stafford. The Court-house was a square yellow
edifice, with a small bell in an open frame set on the top of the
roof; the Jail was a wooden building constructed of hewn
timber. The Green contained in addition, a pair of Stocks, a
Pillory, and a Whipping Post; also one store, a school-house,
one tavern, known as the “Crown and Bowl,” one joiner's,
blacksmith's, shoemaker's, and barber's shop. The four streets
diverging from the centre were commonly called the North,
East, South, and West Streets. A new one had been opened
on the west side of the Green, and received the name of Grove
Street. Let us observe the situation of the principal buildings.
The Meeting-house stood at the north-west corner of
the Green; in the rear of this were the Horse-sheds, a long
and conspicuous row of black, ricketty stalls, having the
initials of the owner's name painted in a circle over each
apartment; at the east end of the sheds was the School-house;
and behind them terminated an old forest that extended indefinitely
to the north. The Tavern stood at the corner
formed by the junction of the West street with the Green,
a few rods from the church. Below the tavern, flanking the
west side of the Green, in succession, were the Court-house,
Jail, and Jail-house, the jail-fence being close upon the highway.
The Pillory with its companions stood under the trees
in the open common fronting the Court-house; the store was
on the east side of the Green. The West street, that into
which Margaret and the Master entered from the “Pasture,”
ascending in a straight line about one hundred rods, curved
to the north, thereby avoiding the hills on which the Pond
lay, and became the main-road to Dunwich, a neighboring
town.

Master Elliman lodged with the Widow Small, who lived
on the South Street. Across this street, and not far from the
widow's ran the small brook, over which lay the Tree-bridge
above-mentioned. To this stream, we may add, the Master,
from some fancy of his own, gave the name of Kedron; and
the path by which they came through the woods he called
Via Dolorosa.

Children were playing on the Green, the boys dressed in
“tongs,” a name for pantaloons or over-alls that had come
into use, and round-a-bouts; some in skirt coats and breeches;
some of them six or eight years of age were still in petticoats.
The girls wore checked linen frocks, with short sleeves, and
pinafores. All were bare-footed, and most of them

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

bareheaded. “He's coming!” “The Master!” was a cry
that echoed from one to another. They dropped their sports,
and drew up in lines on either side as the object of their attention
passed; the boys folding their arms and making short
quick bows; the girls dove-tailing their fingers and squatting
in low courtesies. Margaret, with Bull at her heels, came on
at a respectful distance behind. “Moll Hart,” exclaimed
one of the boys. “A Pond Gal.” “An Injin, an Injin.”
“Where did ye git so much hat?” “Did your daddy make
them are clogs?” So she was saluted by one and another;
but the dog, whose qualities were obvious in his face, if they
had not been rendered familiar in any other way, saved her
from all but verbal insolence.

The Master's was a ground room in an old house. It was
large, with small windows; the walls were wainscotted, the
ceiling boarded, and darkened by age into a reddish mahogany
hue. The chairs were high-top, fan-back, heavy
mahogany. A bureau-desk occupied one side, with its slanting
leaf, pigeon-holes, and escutcheons bearing the head of
King George. On the walls hung pictures in small black
frames, comprising all the kings and queens of England, from
William the Conqueror to the present time. Margaret's
attention was drawn to his books, which consisted of editions
of the Latin and Greek classics, and such school books as
from time to time he had occasion to use; and miscellanies,
made up of works on Free-Masonry, a craft of which he was
a devoted member; books of secular and profane music, a
science to which he was much attached; various histories and
travels; the works of Bolingbroke, Swift and Sterne; the
Spectator and Rambler; Milton, Spenser, Shakspeare, Ben
Jonson, Darwin, Pope, and other poets; Wolstoncraft's
Rights of Women, Paine's Age of Reason, Lord Monboddo's
works; Tooke's Pantheon; Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy;
the Echo, by the Hartford Wits, the American Museum,
and the Massachusetts Magazine; Trumbull's McFingal,
The Devil on Two Sticks, Peregrine Pickle; Quincy's
Dispensatory; Nurse Freelove's New Year's Gift, the Puzzling
Cap, the “World turned upside down.” He gave Margaret,
as he had promised, “The New Universal Spelling Book,” by
Daniel Fenning, late School-master of the Bures in Suffolk,
in England.

The Store, to which Margaret next directed her steps, was
a long old two-story building, bearing some vestiges of having
once been painted red. The large window-shutters and door

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

constituted advertising boards for the merchant himself, and
the public generally. Intermixed with articles of trade, were
notices of calves found, hogs astray, sales on execution; beeswax,
flax, skins, bristles and old pewter, you were informed
would be taken in exchange for goods, and that “cash and
the highest price would be given for the Hon. Robert Morris's
notes.” One paper read as follows: “You Josiah Penrose, of
&c., are hereby permitted to sell 400 gallons W. I. Rum,
do. Brandy, 140 Gin, and 260 pounds of brown Sugar, on all
of which the excise has been duly paid, pursuant to an Act of
the Legislature.

(Signed) William Kingsland,
Collector of excise for the County of Stafford.”

There was also on the door a staring programme of a lottery
scheme. Lotteries, at this period common in all New England,
had become a favorite resort for raising money to support
government, carry on wars, build churches, construct
roads, endow colleges, &c. There was one other sign, that
of the Post-office. Entering the store you beheld a motley
array of dry and fancy goods, crockery, hardware, and groceries,
drugs and medicines. On the right were rolls of kerseymeres,
callimancoes, thicksets, durants, fustians, shaloons,
antiloons, ratteens, duffils and serges of all colors; Manchester
checks, purple and blue calicoes; silks, ribbons,
oznaburgs, ticklenbergs, buckram. On the left were cuttoes,
Barlow knives, iron candlesticks, jewsharps, blackball, bladders
of snuff; in the left corner was the apothecary's apartment,
and on boxes and bottles were written in fading gilt
letters, “Arg. Viv.” “Rad. Sup. Virg.” “Ens Veneris,”
“Oculi Cancrorum,” “Aqua æris fixi,” “Lapis Infernalis,”
“Ext. Saturn.” “Pulvis Regal.” “Sal Martis,” &c. On
naked beams above were suspended weavers' skans, wheelheads,
&c., and on a high shelf running quite around the
walls was cotton warp of all numbers. The back portion of
the building was devoted to a traffic more fashionable and
universal in New England than it ever will be again; and a
row of pipes, hogsheads and barrels, indicated an article the
nature of which could not be mistaken. Above these hung
proof-glasses, tap-borers, a measuring rod, a decanting pump;
and interspersed on the walls, were bunches of chalk-scores
in perpendicular and transverse lines. Near by was a small
counter covered with tumblers and toddy sticks; and when
Margaret entered, one or two ragged will-gill looking men

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

stood there mixing and bolting down liquors. Had she looked
into the counting-room, she would have seen a large fire-place
in one corner, a high desk, round-back arm-chairs and several
hampers of wine.

Margaret sat waiting for two young ladies, who appeared to
have some business with the clerk. These were Bethia
Weeks, the daughter of one of the village squires, and Martha
Madeline Gisborne, the daughter of the joiner. The
clerk's name was Abel Wilcox.

“For my part,” said Miss Bethia, “I don't believe a word
of it.”

“He has kept steady company with her every time he has
been in town,” responded Miss Martha Madeline.

“As if every upstart of a lawyer was to Captain Grand it
over all the girls here,” added the clerk.

“I don't think the Judge's folk are better than some other
people's folk,” said Martha Madeline.

“Susan is a nice girl,” rejoined Bethia.

“I should not be surprised if they were cried next Sabbath,”
said Martha Madeline.

“I guess there will be more than one to cry then,” added
Bethia.

“Now don't; you are really too bad,” rejoined Abel.

This conversation continuing some time, was unintelligible
to Margaret, as we presume it is to our readers, and it were
idle to report it.

“How much shall I measure you of this tiffany, Matty?”
at length asked Abel.

“Oh dear me suz! I don't know,” she replied. “Perhaps I
shall not take any now. You give three shillings for cotton
cloth, and this is nine and six a yard, I declare for't I shall
have to put to; and I must get some warp at any rate. We
have been waiting for some we sent up to Brown Moll's to be
colored, and I don't think it will ever be done.”

“There's young Moll now,” said Abel, pointing to Margaret,
who was seated behind the ladies.

“Has your Marm got that done?” asked Martha Madeline.

“No, she has not,” replied Margaret.

“A book, a book!” exclaimed Martha Madeline, “The
Ingin has got a book. She will be as wise as the Parson.”

“Can you say your letters?” asked Bethia.

“Yes,” replied Margaret.

“Who is teaching you?”

“The Master.”

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

“Pshaw!” ejaculated Martha Madeline, “I never was at
school in my life. Now all the gals is going; such as can't
tell treadles from treacle have got books. And here the Master
goes up to that low, vile, dirty place, the Pond, to larn the
brats.”

Margaret came forward and stated her errand to the clerk.

“Yes, I dare say, she wants rum,” added Martha Madeline.
“Daddy says there is no sense in it; they will all come
to ruin; he says Pluck and his boys drink five or six times a
day, and that nobody should think of drinking more than
three times. Parson Welles says it's a sin for any family to
have more than a gallon a week. There's Hopestill Cutts, he
has been kept out of the church this ten months, because he
won't come down to half a pint a day.”

“Never mind,” interposed the clerk, “I guess they will
find their allowance cut short this time, ha! ha! Here ain't
eggs enough, gal.”

“Marm says you must give a shilling a dozen,” replied
Margaret.

“Perhaps your Marm will say that again before we do,”
rejoined the clerk. “Eggs don't go for but nine-pence in
Livingston or anywhere else.”

Margaret was in a dilemma; — the rum must be had, the
other articles were equally necessary.

“Pa will pay you,” she bethought herself.

“No he won't,” answered the clerk.

“Chilion will bring you down skins, axe-helves, and whipstocks.”

“I tell you, we can't and won't trust you. Your drunken
dad has run up a long chalk already. Look there, I guess
you know enough to count twelve, twelve gallons he owes
now. You are all a haggling, gulching, good-for-nothing
crew.”

“I will bring you some chesnuts and thistle down in the
fall,” replied Margaret.

“Can't trust any of you. What will you take for your
book?”

“I can't sell it; the Master gave it to me.”

“If he would teach you to pay your debts he would do
well.”

A little girl came in about the age of Margaret, and stood
looking attentively at her a moment, as one stranger child is
wont to do with another, then lifting Margaret's hat as it were
inspecting her face, said; “she is not an Injin; they said she

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

was; her face is white as mine.” This little girl was Isabel
Weeks, sister of Bethia.

“Ha, Belle!” said the latter, “what are you here for?”

“I came to see the Injin. Have you got a book too?” she
said, addressing herself to Margaret. “Can you say your
letters?”

“Yes,” replied Margaret, “but they want it for rum.”

“That's wicked; I know it is. Ma wouldn't let me give
my spelling-book for rum. I have threepence in my pocket—
you may have them.”

“Save a thief from hanging and he will cut your throat,”
said Martha Madeline.

“Can't bore an auger hole with a gimlet,” interjected
Abel; “two threepences won't be enough, Miss Belle.”

“Judah has got tenpence, I'll go and get them,” answered
Isabel.

The dog at this moment seeing the trouble of his mistress
began to growl, and the young ladies to scream.

“Out with your dog, young wench, and go home,” cried the
clerk.

“Lie down, Bull!” said Margaret. “Here, sir, you may
have the book.”

The bargain being completed, Margaret, taking her articles,
left the store; and Isabel followed her.

“The lower classes are very troublesome,” said Abel, “we
have to take odds and ends, and everything from them. If
we didn't favor them a little, I believe they would take the
store by storm. Deacon Penrose says it is a mercy to ourselves
and the town that we have liquors to sell. The other
day when I had been drawing a keg for Parson Welles, Ike
Tapley, because I wouldn't let him have the lick of the tap,
was as mad as a March hare. Precious little profit do we get
out of these folks.”

Isabel walked on with Margaret across the Green in silence.
She said nothing, but with her pinafore wiped the
tears from Margaret's eyes. She was too young, perhaps, to
tell all she felt, and could only alleviate the grief she beheld
by endeavoring to efface its effects.

Margaret, happy, unhappy, fagged up the hill; she had lost
her book, she had got the rum; herself was miserable, she
knew her family would be pleased, yet she was wholly sad
when she thought of the Master and then of her book. She
left the highway and crossed the Pasture. The sun had gone
down when she reached the woods, she feared not; her

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

dreams, her own fresh heart, and Bull, were with her. The
shadow of God was about her, but she knew Him or It not;
she was ignorant as a Hottentot. She came to the bridge;
the water ran deep and dark below her. Who will look into
her soul as she looked into the water? Who will thread the
Via Dolorosa of her spirit. For the music, the murmurs of
that brook there were no ears, as there were none for hers.
Yet she looked into the water, which seemed to hiss and race
more merrily over the stones, as she looked. She heard owls,
frogs, tree-toads; and she might almost have heard the tread
of the saturnine wood-spider, at work in his loom with his
warp-tail and shuttle-feet, working a weft which the dews
were even then embroidering, to shine out when the sun rose
in silver spangles and ruby buds; and her own soul, woven as
silently in God's quilt, was taking on impressions from those
dark woods, that invisible universe, to shine out when her
morning dawns. Alas! when shall that be; in this world, in
the next? Is there any place here for a pure beautiful soul?
If none, then let Margaret die. Or shall we let her murmur
on forever, like the brook, in hopes that some one will look
into her waters and be gladdened by her sound. She ran on
through the Chesnuts, the strange old bald trees seeming to
move as she moved, those more distant shooting by the others
in rapid lines, performing a kind of spectral pantomine. Run
on Margaret! and let the world dance round you as it may.
When she reached home, she found the family all a bed, excepting
Chilion, who sat in the dark, patiently, perhaps doggedly,
waiting for her.

“Is she come?” cried the father, waking from his sleep.
“Give us a nip.”

“None of your sneaking here, old bruiser!” broke out the
mother, rising in bed. “You are a real coon that would
suck the biggest cock dry.”

They both drank, and Margaret, having eaten a morsel
Chilion kept for her, went to her bed. She had not been
long asleep, when she was awakened by a noise below. Her
father was calling her name, “Molly! Molly!” She started
immediately to go down.

“Never mind, Margery,” spoke Chilion, from his own
chamber, as she descended the ladder. “He will come out of
it soon.”

Her father, overcome by his liquor, had fallen into a sort
of delirium. “Bite, will ye? spit fire, ram lightning down a
babe's throat, Molly! Molly!” She seized the convulsed

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

arm of the old man, and rubbed it. “There, there,” she
said, “it will be over soon.” Her mother lay trussed and
frozen in sleep.

“Sweet angel,” said the father; “hold on, put their tails in
the stocks and let them squirm,—Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed
out, changing his tone. “There's pitch-forks, and swingling
stands, and two Bibles dancing a hornpipe, and Deacon Penrose
playing on a rum-hogshead.”

“I shwum,” cried Hash, swaggering down the ladder, “if
they an't a toping the whole. Why didn't you tell me you
had got back, Peggy?” He took the keg to make sure of
what remained.

“Hash! Hash!” cried Margaret, “he thinks he's falling
off the bridge, I can't hold him.”

“Let him fall and be — and you too,” was the reply.
The paroxysm began to subside, the old man's arm relaxed,
his breathing became easier. Margaret reascended the stairs,
whither Hash had already preceded her, and returned to that
forgetfulness of all things which God vouchsafes even to the
most miserable.