"Oh, dear, dear," said Dolly in a grieved voice, as if she were hearing an unfavourable report of a sick man's case.She was silent for some minutes; at last she said--"There's wise folks, happen, as know how it all is; the parson knows, I'll be bound; but it takes big words to tell them things, and such as poor folks can't make much out on.I can never rightly know the meaning o' what I hear at church, only a bit here and there, but I know it's good words--I do.But what lies upo' your mind--it's this, Master Marner: as, if Them above had done the right thing by you, They'd never ha' let you be turned out for a wicked thief when you was innicent.""Ah!" said Silas, who had now come to understand Dolly's phraseology, "that was what fell on me like as if it had been red-hot iron; because, you see, there was nobody as cared for me or clave to me above nor below.And him as I'd gone out and in wi' for ten year and more, since when we was lads and went halves--mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, had lifted up his heel again'
me, and worked to ruin me."
"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 Ican't justly put my hand on it, as there was a rights 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 Idon't know.For I've often a deal inside me as'll never 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.""But you can mostly say something as I can make sense on, Mrs.Winthrop," said Silas.
"Well, then, Master Marner, it come to me summat like this: I can make nothing o' the drawing o' lots and the answer coming wrong; it 'ud mayhap take the parson to tell that, and he could only tell us i' big words.But what come to me as clear as the daylight, it was when I was troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and it allays comes into my head when I'm sorry for folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help 'em, not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the night--it comes into my head as Them above has got a deal tenderer heart nor what I've got--for I can't be anyways better nor Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to me, it's because there's things Idon't know on; and for the matter o' that, there may be plenty o'
things I don't know on, for it's little as I know--that it is.
And so, while I was thinking o' that, you come into my mind, Master Marner, and it all come pouring in:--if _I_ felt i' my inside what was the right and just thing by you, and them as prayed and drawed the lots, all but that wicked un, if _they_'d ha' done the right thing by you if they could, isn't there Them as was at the ****** on us, and knows better and has a better will? And that's all as ever I can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when Ithink on it.For there was the fever come and took off them as were full-growed, and left the helpless children; and there's the breaking o' limbs; and them as 'ud do right and be sober have to suffer by them as are contrairy--eh, there's trouble i' this world, and there's things as we can niver make out the rights on.
And all as we've got to do is to trusten, Master Marner--to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten.For if us as knows so little can see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know--I feel it i' my own inside as it must be so.And if you could but ha' gone on trustening, Master Marner, you wouldn't ha' run away from your fellow-creaturs and been so lone.""Ah, but that 'ud ha' been hard," said Silas, in an under-tone;"it 'ud ha' been hard to trusten then."
"And so it would," said Dolly, almost with compunction; "them things are easier said nor done; and I'm partly ashamed o'
talking."