Villages -- England -- Fiction; Yorkshire (England) -- Fiction
"Ah, miss," she replied, "there's a kind of illness 'at you can't get
any doctor to cure, but Greenwood's illness could be accounted for when
you know all. It's true enough 'at there wasn't a stronger nor
likelier man i' t' West Ridin' than my 'usband, nor a steadier. And he
never ailed owt, never. Day in an' day out he did his work wi' t' best
on 'em, an' took all his meals hearty. But he lived wi' a great big
wound in his inside this last ten year for all that, an' they can say
what they like, but I know if he hadn't had that sore in his soul he'd
never have had that bad place in his body.
"You can't go by appearances, miss. My husband was right enough in his
body, but he was sick at heart. It's not easy tellin', but I can tell
you, though I'm sure I don't know why. We never had but two children,
Jane an' her brother Joseph. My husband was called after his
mother--her name was Greenwood afore she was married--so we called our
lad Joseph after his grandfather. He came within a year of our gettin'
wed, and a brighter little lad never breathed. Eh! he was that bonny
an' sweet ...
"How is it, miss, 'at some grows up so crook'd an' others i' t' same
family never gives you a minute's trouble? Our Jane has been a comfort
to us both all her life, but Joe has broke our rest many a hundred
nights. He was same as he took t' wrong road from bein' a little lad
o' twelve. He would go his own road, an' it was allus t' wrong road.
He'd work if it pleased him, an' he wouldn't if it didn't, an' you
could neither coax him nor thrash him into it. His father tried both
ways, an' I'm sure I did all I could. An' the way he sauced his father
you wouldn't believe for a young lad.
"He had his good points, too, for he wouldn't lie to save his own skin
or anybody else's, an' he was as honest as they make 'em. But he was
self-willed and 'eadstrong past all tellin'. He used to laugh about
the devil, an' say it was all bosh an' old wives' tales, but if ever a
man was possessed wi' one our Joseph was when he were nineteen.
"There isn't a church for four mile; no, but there are two drink shops
easy enough to get at. Oh, miss, why do they let the devil set traps
to catch the souls o' men? They can't keep him out of us, God knows,
but they've no need to build places for him to live in, and license him
to do his devil's work. O Lord, why didn't You save our Joe?
"He came home drunk the day he was nineteen, an' his father was just
full up wi' grief an' vexation. An' men don't bear wi' it same as
women do. He put the Bible down on the table, Greenwood did, an' he
went up to t' lad, an' he said:
"'I won't have it, Joe. I've told you afore an' I tell you again, if
you're goin' to come home drunk ye'll sleep in t' barn, for I won't
have you in t' house.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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