And furthermore that the said Task be not undertaken lightly or
except in direst Need, under pain of Grievous and Sore
Affliction. This I say, knowing well the Spiritual and worldly
Perils that shall beset such an one, and having myself been
brought near to Destruction of Body and Soul, which latter may
Christ in His Mercy avert.
"Thus, having eased my mind of great and pressing Anguish, I
commend my soul to God, before Whose Judgment Bar I shall be
presently summoned to stand, the greatest of sinners, yet not
without hope of Everlasting Redemption, for Christ's sake.
Amen.
"AMOS TRENOWETH."
Such was the Will, written on stiff parchment in crabbed and
unscholarly characters, without legal forms or witnesses; but all
such were needless, as I have pointed out. And, indeed, my father
was wise, as I think, to show it to nobody, but go his way quietly as
before, managing the farm as he had managed it during the old man's
last years. Only by degrees he broke from the seclusion which had
been natural to him during his parents' lifetime, so far as to look
about for a wife--shyly enough at first--until he caught the dark
eyes of Margery Freethy one Sunday morning in Polkimbra Church,
whither he had gone of late for freedom, to the no small tribulation
of the meeting-house.
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