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It were too much to pretend that Betty Higden made out such thoughts; no; but she heard the tender river whispering to many like herself, 'Come to me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I am not held in estimation according as I shirk it.
And perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me know how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on? 'I'll send Sloppy, said Mrs Higden. 'And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble, said Mrs Boffin. 'And Mr Sloppy, whenever you come to my house, be sure you never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding.
'He never thought as I could sleep standing, and often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID! Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and throwing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.
Stop! Stop, Betty Higden! and melted away as they came close; be these things left untold. Faring on and hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmless creature, as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were up after her, wore out the day, and gained the night.
Roger Huggett, Conduct and Librarian of the College, who died in 1769. This is an unusually full and clear pedigree. One more, and I have done. This time it is a copy of the Polychronicon of Ranulph Higden, monk of Chester; it was the popular history of the world and of England for anyone who could read Latin in the fifteenth century.
Pitseus, upon the year 1259, in which the said Mathew died, gives him a great many more encomiums, which for brevity sake I hear omit. The remaining half of 'Mateo Rodulfo' turns out to be Ranulphus or Ralph, Higden, the Monk of Chester, whose Polychronicon is quoted both by Messingham and Montalvan.
Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know'd either, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking, Granny!" and Mrs Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me "Bide a bit, Sloppy," and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breathing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together. Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a vacant grin.
Bella asked him, had he any notion who that unknown friend might be? He had no notion whatever. They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old Betty Higden strayed. They were to return by the train presently, and, the station being near at hand, the Reverend Frank and Mrs Frank, and Sloppy and Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it.
The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a corner of a churchyard near the river; in a churchyard so obscure that there was nothing in it but grass-mounds, not so much as one single tombstone.
But there's Mrs Higden, said Sloppy, checking himself in his raptures, drawing back, and shaking his head with very serious meaning. 'There's Mrs Higden. Mrs Higden goes before all. None can ever be better friends to me than Mrs Higden's been. And she must be turned for, must Mrs Higden.
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