Moans came from the bed, but the candle in a bottle, by which the
woman was reading, was so placed that we could not see the sufferer.
We stood still and did not interrupt the reading.
'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed a coarse voice from the side of the chimney:
'the saint, you see, was no better than some of the rest of us!'
'I think he was a good deal worse just then,' said Falconer,
stepping forward.
'Gracious! there's Mr. Falconer,' said another woman, rising, and
speaking in a flattering tone.
'Then,' remarked the former speaker, 'there's a chance for old Moll
and me yet. King David was a saint, wasn't he? Ha! ha!'
'Yes, and you might be one too, if you were as sorry for your faults
as he was for his.'
'Sorry, indeed! I'll be damned if I be sorry. What have I to be
sorry for? Where's the harm in turning an honest penny? I ha' took
no man's wife, nor murdered himself neither. There's yer saints!
He was a rum 'un. Ha! ha!'
Falconer approached her, bent down and whispered something no one
could hear but herself. She gave a smothered cry, and was silent.
'Give me the book,' he said, turning towards the bed. 'I'll read you
something better than that. I'll read about some one that never did
anything wrong.'
'I don't believe there never was no sich a man,' said the previous
reader, as she handed him the book, grudgingly.
'Not Jesus Christ himself?' said Falconer.
'Oh! I didn't know as you meant him.
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