Whats Mines Mine, vol 2 | Page 2

a living for the souls of so many as well,
and the least they could do was to keep him alive who was making
them alive. She said that was very true; but he was all the time doing
everything for everybody, and she was doing nothing for anybody. The
priest was a wise man, and did not tell her how she had, since ever he
knew her, been doing the work of God in his heart, helping him to
believe and trust in God; so that in fact, when he was preaching, she
was preaching. He did not tell her that, I say, for he was jealous over
her beauty, and would have Christ's beloved sheep enter his holy

kingdom with her wool white, however torn it might be. So he left her
to think she was nobody at all; and told her that, whether she was worth
keeping alive or not, whether she was worth begging for or not,
whether it was a disgrace or an honour to beg, all was one, for it was
the will of God that she should beg, and there was no word more to be
said, and no thought more to be thought about it. To this she heartily
agreed, and did beg--enough to keep her alive, and no more.
"But at last she saw she must leave that part of the country, and go back
to the place her husband took her from. For the people about her were
very poor, and she thought it hard on them to have to help a stranger
like her; also her own people would want her to bury. For you must
know that in the clans, marriage was thought to be dissolved by death,
so far at least as the body was concerned; therefore the body of a dead
wife was generally carried back to the burial place of her own people,
there to be gathered to her fathers. So the woman set out for her own
country, begging her way thither. Nor had she any difficulty, for there
were not a few poor people on her way, and the poor are the readiest to
help the poor, also to know whether a person is one that ought to be
helped or not.
"One night she came to a farm house where a rich miserly farmer dwelt.
She knew about him, and had not meant to stop there, but she was
weary, and the sun went down as she reached his gate, and she felt as if
she could go no farther. So she went up to the door and knocked, and
asked if she could have a nights lodging. The woman who opened to
her went and asked the farmer. Now the old man did not like hospitality,
and in particular to such as stood most in need of it; he did not enjoy
throwing away money! At the same time, however, he was very fond of
hearing all the country rumours; and he thought with himself he would
buy her news with a scrap of what was going, and a shake-down at the
foot of the wall. So he told his servant to bring her in.
"He received her not unkindly, for he wanted her to talk; and he let her
have a share of the supper, such as it was. But not until he had asked
every question about everybody he could think of, and drawn her own
history from her as well, would he allow her to have the rest she so
much needed.
"Now it was a poor house, like most in the country, and nearly without
partitions. The old man had his warm box-bed, and slept on feathers

where no draught could reach him, and the poor woman had her bed of
short rumpled straw on the earthen floor at the foot of the wall in the
coldest corner. Yet the heart of the man had been moved by her story,
for, without dwelling on her sufferings, she had been honest in telling it.
He had indeed, ere he went to sleep, thanked God that he was so much
better off than she. For if he did not think it the duty of the rich man to
share with his neighbours, he at least thought it his duty to thank God
for his being richer than they.
"Now it may well seem strange that such a man should be privileged to
see a vision; but we do read in the Bible of a prophet who did not even
know his duty to an ass, so that the ass had to teach it him. And the
man alone saw the vision; the woman saw nothing of it. But she did not
require to see any vision, for she had truth in