Your Electronic Books

Now she ceased
to fret for his love: he was an outsider to her. This made life much
more bearable.
Nevertheless, she still continued to strive with him. She still had her
high moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a
religious instinct, and she was almost a fanatic with him, because
she loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned, she tortured him. If he
drank, and lied, was often a poltroon, sometimes a knave, she wielded
the lash unmercifully.
The pity was, she was too much his opposite. She could not be content
with the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought
to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed
him. She injured and hurt and scarred herself, but she lost none of her
worth. She also had the children.
He drank rather heavily, though not more than many miners, and always
beer, so that whilst his health was affected, it was never injured.
The week-end was his chief carouse. He sat in the Miners' Arms until
turning-out time every Friday, every Saturday, and every Sunday evening.


Pages:
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46