"Art laid uneasy?" said she, at his side in an instant. "Does aught ail thee? Is the bed ill-made?" "Naught," said he. "It's better than the bed of Solomon to me, with the pillars of silver and the bottom of gold. But I am like to them that dream, laughing and crying all in one. For I used to think before thee come to the gaol, how I should never see thee kindle a fire in the old place again, and how every stick thee had to take from where I laid it for thee would go to thy heart like a stab. And it shamed me not to have made a better shot at the Lord's meaning for thee and me." "How could thee tell His meaning," said Rachel, "before He told thee? He gave thee no promise to bring thee out of prison, nor me." "Nay," said Job, "but it's making very bold with Him, and making fools of ourselves, to guess at His words when they're half spoken, instead of waiting to hear them out. And it grieves me I should have suspected Him when He was moaning us so well. Read me what the Scripture saith about the forgiveness of sins." "But, Mistress? Olive," concluded Rachel, when she told me this little history, "when Elijah, worn out with trouble, misunderstood the Lord, the angel comforted him, not with a text, but with a cake baken on the coals; so, when Job took to misunderstanding the Almighty like that, thinking He would be angered with what would not have fretted one of the likes of us poor hasty creatures, instead of the Bible I gave him a good cup of strong broth. I knew it was the body, poor soul, and not the spirit that was to blame, and that all those brave words he spoke to the neighbours had cost more than they were worth; and, of course, I was not going to profane the Holy Word by using it like the spell in a witch's charm." So for several days she kept every creature out of the cottage, which deprived me of her counsel in a moment of difficulty, which happened the week of their return. Lord Capel's troops continued to hover round, and to keep the district in a state of suspense and alarm, ripe for any marvellous stories of horror, or for any acts of terrified revenge. For in stormy times there are sure to be some cowardly spirits ready to throw any helpless victim as an expiatory sacrifice to the powers of evil. One Saturday evening, late in February, I was returning home through the village from Gammer Grindle's cottage, which I had very often visited since poor Tim's death. The old woman had seemed gentler in her way of speaking of her neighbours, and once or twice had betrayed her pleasure in seeing me by speaking sharply to me if I stayed away longer than usual, as if I had been one of her own lost grandchildren.