It was almost worth while being ill to savour those browies and that ale. Never, sure, were nectar and ambrosia sweeter on Olympian lips than that homely mixture of haver-bread and beef-dripping, piping hot, and pepper and salt, washed down with innocent home-brewed. I've lived to see the day when men and women drink tea by the quart when their fathers quaffed their home-brewed; and shattered nerves and dyspeptic stomachs tell what's amiss. Worse still, I've lived to see the day when you can travel the countryside for miles around and hardly a housewife be found that can brew a peck of honest malt. It's malt and chemicals now, dear bought at the public-house; and muddled heads and shaky limbs tell what's amiss. But so long as my father lived never did drop of alien brew pass the doors of Pole Moor Manse, and as for spirits save a thimbleful of brandy in case of sickness the very name was anathema in my father's ears and while I was spooning my brownies with great gusto and meditating another mighty pull at the pewter jug, my dear old father stole softly up the narrow staircase in his stocking-feet, having doffed his shoon in the kitchen, partly to avoid noise, but more to avoid dirt and Ruth's consequent and instant railing accusations. And when he saw me so valiantly engaged, the little, thin man, with a heart as tender as a woman's and as dauntless as Goliath's, could find no words to speak, but must needs sit by my couch and softly pat my big hand, and bid me not to talk more but sleep if I could. And, knowing well that no petition could please him better, I asked him to read just a verse or two from the Book that was indeed to him the Book of Life, and as he read in his grave, soft voice, all tremulous now, how the Master came nigh to the gate of a certain city and there was one carried out, the only son of his mother and she a widow, and how the Lord had compassion on her and bade her weep not, and how the young man sat up and began to speak, and "he delivered him to his mother," the warm tears trickled softly down the hollow cheeks, and I knew that not in Nain only was "God glorified," and full of thankfulness to heaven for the love of this sainted man, and still weak, doubtless, from loss of blood and confinement to bed, and low diet, and drowsy perchance, from the ale I had drunk, and at natural peace with God and man, I sank into a natural sleep, and so slumbered with my father's hand in mine.