’Well, only read the papers that come with them.  I make my girl Sally read ’em all to me, being that she’s a better scholar; and the long words is quite heavenly—­I declare there ain’t one of them shorter than peregrination.  I’d have brought one of them over to shew you if I hadn’t come away in a hurry, because Evans’s cart was going out to the merry orchard, and says I to Mother, Well, I’ll get a lift now there’s such a chance to Friarswood:  it’ll do them all a bit of good to see a bit of cheerful company, seeing, as Mr. Blunt says, that poor lad is going after his father as fast as can be.  Dear me, says I, you don’t say so, such a fine healthy-looking chap as he was.  Yes, he says, but it’s in the constitution; it’s getting to the lungs, and he’ll never last out the winter.’

Alfred listened for the tone of his mother’s voice; he knew he should judge by that, even without catching the words—­low, subdued, sad—­he almost thought she began with ‘Yes.’

All the rest that he heard passed by him merely as a sound, noted no more than the lowing of the cattle, or the drone of the thrashing machine.  He lay half lifted up on his pillows, drawing his breath short with apprehension; his days were numbered, and death was coming fast, fast, straight upon him.  He felt it within himself—­he knew now the meaning of the pain and sinking, the shortness of breath and choking of throat that had been growing on him through the long summer days; he was being ‘cut off with pining sickness,’ and his sentence had gone forth.  He would have screamed for his mother in the sore terror and agony that had come over him, in hopes she might drive the notion from him; but the dread of seeing her followed by that woman kept his lips shut, except for his long gasps of breath.

And she could not keep him—­Mr. Blunt could not keep him; no one could stay the hand that had touched him!  Prayer!  They had prayed for his father, for Charlie, but it had not been God’s Will.  He had himself many times prayed to recover, and it had not been granted—­he was worse and worse.

Moreover, whither did that path of suffering lead?  Up rose before Alfred the thought of living after the unknown passage, and of answering for all he had done; and now the faults he had refused to call to mind when he was told of chastisement, came and stood up of themselves.  Bred up to know the good, he had not loved it; he had cared for his own pleasure, not for God; he had not heeded the comfort of his widowed mother; he had been careless of the honour of God’s House, said and heard prayers without minding them; he had been disrespectful and ill-behaved at my Lady’s—­he had been bad in every way; and when illness came, how rebellious and murmuring he had been, how unkind he had been to his patient mother, sister, and brother; and when Mr. Cope had told him it was meant to lead him to repent, he would not hear; and now it was too late, the door would be shut.  He had always heard that there was a time when sorrow was no use, when the offer of being saved had been thrown away.