Gordon Stables - From Squire to Squatter - A Tale of the Old Land and the New

It was strange that what force could not effect, a few soft words from Branson, and Archie’s gift of the hare he had shot on his birthday, brought about. Bob Cooper’s heart could not have been wholly adamantine, therefore he began to believe that after all a gamekeeper might be a good fellow, and that there might even exist gentlefolks whose chief delight was not the oppression of the poor. He began after that to seek for honest work; but, alas! people looked askance at him, and he found that the path of virtue was one not easily regained when once deviated from.

His quondam enemy, however, Branson, spoke many a good word for him, and Bob was getting on, much to his mother’s delight and thankfulness, when the final and crashing blow fell.

Poor old widow Cooper! For years and years she had but two comforts in this world; one was her Bible, and the other – do not smile when I tell you – was her pipie.

Oh! you know, the poor have not much to make them happy and to cheer their loneliness, so why begrudge the widow her morsel of tobacco?

In the former she learned to look forward to another and a better world, far beyond that bit of blue sky she could see at the top of her chimney on a summer’s night – a world where everything would be bright and joyful, where there would be no vexatious rheumatism, no age, and neither cold nor care. From the latter she drew sweet forgetfulness of present trouble, and happy recollections of bygone years.

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