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Daddy Darwin’s Dovecot
by
Language fails to convey the bitterness which the old man put into these last two words. It exhausted him, and his mind wandered. When he had to some extent recovered himself he spoke again, but very feebly.
“Tak’ my duty to the Vicar, lad, Daddy Darwin’s duty, and say he’s at t’ last feather of the shuttle, and would be thankful for the Sacrament.”
The Parson had come and gone. Daddy Darwin did not care to lie down, he breathed with difficulty; so Jack made him easy in a big armchair, and raked up the fire with cinders, and took a chair on the other side of the hearth to watch with him. The old man slept comfortably and at last, much wearied, the young man dozed also.
He awoke because Daddy Darwin moved, but for a moment he thought he must be dreaming. So erect the old man stood, and with such delight in his wide-open eyes. They were looking over Jack’s head.
All that the lad had never seen upon his face seemed to have come back to it–youth, hope, resolution, tenderness. His lips were trembling with the smile of acutest joy.
Suddenly he stretched out his arms, and crying, “Alice!” started forward and fell–dead–on the breast of his adopted son.
* * * * *
Craw! Craw! Craw! The crows flapped slowly home, and the Gaffers moved off too. The sun was down, and “damps” are bad for “rheumatics.”
“It’s a strange tale,” said Gaffer II., “but if all’s true ye tell me, there’s not too many like him.”
“That’s right enough,” Gaffer I. admitted. “He’s been t’ same all through, and ye should ha’ seen the burying he gave t’ old chap. He was rare and good to him by all accounts, and never gainsaid him ought, except i’ not lifting his voice as he should ha’ done at t’ grave. Jacks sings a bass solo as well as any man i’ t’ place, but he stood yonder, for all t’ world like one of them crows, black o’ visage, and black wi’ funeral clothes, and choked with crying like a child i’stead of a man.”
“Well, well, t’ old chap were all he had, I reckon,” said Gaffer II.
“That’s right enough; and for going backwards, as ye may say, and setting a wild graff on an old standard, yon will’s done well for DADDY DARWIN’S DOVECOT.”