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To think that she was now twenty-three and he nearly twenty-eight; that they might have been married two years ago, and as happy then as to-night! At last they arrived at home, that poor lodging, with its damp flooring and moss-grown roof. They lit the candle, which the wind blew out twice. Old grandam Moan, who had been taken home before the singing began, was there.
"'My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that in the old song of Pharaoh, which I have heard my grandam sing "Canna marel o manus chivios ande puv, Ta rovel pa leste o chavo ta romi." When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and his wife and child sorrow over him.
On one bed lay a rather comely young woman with a child by her side; on a chest close by sat another with her lover, courting in the most open and primitive manner. In the corner an old grandam dozed with her pipe, her withered face just touched by the rim of the firelight.
All the people turned around in my direction, as I said, amazed, 'Grandam, what in the world is this you are giving me? After mumbling a lot of inaudible nonsense, amid which, however, to my great surprise, I made out my own name, she answered, 'An amulet, Kohlhaas the horse-dealer; take good care of it; some day it will save your life! and vanished.
She had gone far down-hill physically; but either she did not feel her decadence, or she had grown quite reconciled to it. Her daughter, a blooming matron, was there, happy, wealthy, good; yet not apparently a whit more reconciled to life than the aged grandam. It was pleasing, and yet it was sad, to see how well we can make up our mind to what is inevitable.
'My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that in the old song of Pharaoh, which I have heard my grandam sing: "Cana marel o manus chivios ande puv, Ta rovel pa leste o chavo ta romi." When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and his wife and child sorrow over him.
Now my grandam does it because she is parcel blind by age, and whole blind by kindred; and my master, the poor Dominie, does it to curry favour, and have the fullest platter of furmity and the warmest seat by the fire. But what you call me pretty lad for, you know best yourself." "Thou art a sharp wag at least, if not a pretty one. But what do thy playfellows call thee?"
But let Richard Sludge alone; I have not been cock of the roost here for nothing. I will make sharp wit mend foul feature." "But what will your grandam say, and your tutor, Dominie Holiday?" "E'en what they like," replied Dickie; "the one has her chickens to reckon, and the other has his boys to whip.
Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grand-sires, ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam.
It is all very well to say that men and women had their choice whether they would reach the safe harbor or not. "Go to it grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry and a fig." We know what the child will take. So which course we shall take depends very much on the way the choice is presented to us, and on what the chooser is by nature.