I felt good and noble. I felt I didn't want to be sinful and wicked any
more. I would come and live here, and never do any more wrong, and lead
a blameless, beautiful life, and have silver hair when I got old, and all
that sort of thing.
In that moment I forgave all my friends and relations for their
wickedness and cussedness, and I blessed them. They did not know that I
blessed them. They went their abandoned way all unconscious of what I,
far away in that peaceful village, was doing for them; but I did it, and
I wished that I could let them know that I had done it, because I wanted
to make them happy. I was going on thinking away all these grand, tender
thoughts, when my reverie was broken in upon by a shrill piping voice
crying out:
"All right, sur, I'm a-coming, I'm a-coming. It's all right, sur; don't
you be in a hurry."
I looked up, and saw an old bald-headed man hobbling across the
churchyard towards me, carrying a huge bunch of keys in his hand that
shook and jingled at every step.
I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he still advanced,
screeching out the while:
"I'm a-coming, sur, I'm a-coming. I'm a little lame. I ain't as spry as
I used to be. This way, sur."
"Go away, you miserable old man," I said.
