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Updated: May 25, 2025
Alack-a-day! ey wur out i' my reckonin', fo' scarcely had ey reached this kloof, o' my way to Sabden, than ey wur seized wi' a sudden shock, os if a thunder-bowt had hit me, an ey lost the use o' my lower limbs, an t' laft soide, an should ha' deed most likely, if it hadna bin fo' Ebil o' Jem's o' Dan's who spied me out, an brought me help."
As his father spoke, things grew clearer to Jem's mind, and he saw now that he had not been dreaming, but had really served the old woman seven years in the shape of a squirrel. As he thought it over rage filled his heart. Seven years of his youth had been stolen from him, and what had he got in return?
It was a period of intense excitement before the sun rose though it was of short duration but scarcely had his first rays touched the open meadow, casting a huge gray shadow from the rounded hill which covered half the valley, while all the farther slope was laughing in broad light, the mist wreaths curling up, thinner and thinner every moment, from the broad streamlet in the bottom, which here and there flashed out exultingly from its wood-covered margins scarcely had his first rays topped the hill, before a distant shout came swelling on the air, down the ravine, announcing Jem's approach.
The white sickle of the road; a light at the top of the sickle; the Aldersons' house. A man was crossing from the moor-track to the road. He carried a stack of heather on his shoulder: Jem's brother, Ned. He stopped and stared. He was thicker and slower than Jem; darker haired; fuller and redder in the face; he looked at you with the same little, kind, screwed-up eyes.
Then, every day some new plan, keeping the whole house awake and alive: when Tom's birthday came, a surprise-feast of raspberries and cake; when Jem's new trousers were produced, they had been made up over-night, a dead secret, ten shining dimes in the pocket, fresh from the mint; even the penny string of blue beads for Catty, bought of Sims the peddler, was hid under her plate, and made quite a jollification of that supper.
Added to these reasons was Jem's extreme unwillingness to face him, with the belief in his breast that he, and none other, had done the fearful deed. It was true that he was Mary's father, and as such had every right to be told of all concerning her; but supposing he were, and that he followed the impulse so natural to a father, and wished to go to her, what might be the consequences?
He told me that Sir G. Carteret was at this end of the town; so I went to visit him in Broad Street; and there he and I together: and he is mightily pleased with my Lady Jem's having a son; and a mighty glad man he is.
Jem's death seemed to knock away one of the supports of the future, and Arthur Agar even in his grief was conscious of the impending necessity of having to act for himself some day. At length he lifted his head, and through the intricate pattern of the very newest design in art muslins the daylight fell on his face.
Although, however, Harry and I told him very frankly that we were not merely the sole planners, but the sole executors, of the trick it was in vain we spoke. Tom would not have it. "No he knew he knew well enough; did we go for to think he was such an old etarnal fool as not to know Jem's voice a bloody Decker he would be the death of him."
Her brief dream of young joy had been the one real thing in her life. She absolutely had lain awake at night and reconstructed the horror of Jem's death, had lived it over again, writhing in agony on her bed, and madly feeling that by so doing she was holding her love close to her life.
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