'We thought we'd lost you, Jo!' she ses.
And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby.
And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self.
And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby."
The softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.
Nothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve his feelings.
"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby," proceeds Jo, "wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p'raps?"
"Yes, Jo, please God," returns the stationer.
"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?" says Jo with eagerness.
"Yes, my poor boy."
Jo laughs with pleasure.
"Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't he moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind.
If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might."
"It shall say it, Jo.
Very large."
Jo laughs again.
"Thankee, Mr. Sangsby.
It's wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore."
The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case requiring so many--and is fain to depart.
And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more.
For the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over stony ground.
All round the clock it labours up the broken steps, shattered and worn.
Not many times can the sun rise and behold it still upon its weary road.
Phil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse and works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking round and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging elevation of his one eyebrow,
"Hold up, my boy!
Hold up!"
There, too, is Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both thinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast in the web of very different lives.
There, too, the trooper is a frequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and, from his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down temporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in answer to his cheerful words.
Jo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly arrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form.
After a while he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards him--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest and heart.
The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little more.
The trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent.
Phil has stopped in a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand.
Mr. Woodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and attention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper, signs to Phil to carry his table out.
When the little hammer is next used, there will be a speck of rust upon it.
"Well, Jo!
What is the matter?
Don't be frightened."
"I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin.
Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?"
"Nobody."
"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's.
Am I, sir?"
"No."
Jo closes his eyes, muttering,
"I'm wery thankful."
After watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice,
"Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?"
"Never knowd nothink, sir."
"Not so much as one short prayer?"