'
'Eh, but he was a bad un- I can't think as there's another such,'
said Dolly. 'But I'm o'ercome, Master Marner; I'm like as if I'd waked
and didn't know whether it was night or morning. I feel somehow as
sure as I do when I've laid something up though I can't justly put
my hand on it, as there was a right in what happened to you, if one
could but make it out; and you'd no call to lose heart as you did. But
we'll talk on it again; for sometimes things come into my head when
I'm leeching or poulticing, or such, as I could never think on when
I was sitting still.'
Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many opportunities of
illumination of the kind she alluded to, and she was not long before
she recurred to the subject.
'Master Marner,' she said, one day that she came to bring home
Eppie's washing, 'I've been sore puzzled for a good bit wi' that
trouble o' yourn and the drawing o' lots; and it got twisted back'ards
and for'ards, as I didn't know which end to lay hold on. But it come
to me all clear like, that night when I was sitting up wi' poor
Bessy Fawkes, as is dead and left her children behind, God help 'em-
it come to me as clear as daylight; but whether I've got hold on it
now, or can anyways bring it to my tongue's end, that I don't know.
For I've often a deal inside me as'll niver come out; and for what you
talk o' your folks in your old country niver saying prayers by heart
nor saying 'em out of a book, they must be wonderful cliver; for if
I didn't know "Our Father", and little bits o' good words as I can
carry out o' church wi' me, I might down o' my knees every night,
but nothing could I say.
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