I Wish I Had Sent John Brown A Pound Or Two When I Was In
Good Health; But One Is Selfish Then, And Puts Off Things Till It Is Too
Late - A Lame Excuse Verily.
I can scarcely believe now that he is really
dead, gone as you might casually pluck a hawthorn leaf from the hedge.
The next cottage was a very marked one, for houses grow to their owners.
The low thatched roof had rounded itself and stooped down to fit itself
to Job's shoulders; the walls had got short and thick to suit him, and
they had a yellowish colour, like his complexion, as if chewing tobacco
had stained his cheeks right through. Tobacco juice had likewise
penetrated and tinted the wall. It was cut off as it seemed by a
party-wall into one room, instead of which there were more rooms beyond
which no one would have suspected. Job had a way of shaking hands with
you with his right hand, while his left hand was casually doing something
else in a detached sort of way. 'Yes, sir,' and 'No, sir,' and nodding to
everything you said all so complaisant, but at the end of the bargain you
generally found yourself a few shillings in some roundabout manner on the
wrong side. Job had a lot of shut-up rooms in his house and in his
character, which never seemed to be opened to daylight. The eaves hung
over and beetled like his brows, and he had a forelock, a regular antique
forelock, which he used to touch with the greatest humility.
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