faacin' you. Seems you'm better, an' us at chapel's prayed hot an' strong
to the Throne that you might be left to work out your salvation now your
foot's 'pon the right road."

"But if I dies, mister?"

"'The prayer of the righteous man availeth much,'" answered Gray Michael
evasively. "I be come," he added, "to read the Scriptures to 'e."

"You all prayed for me, sir?"

"Iss, every man, but theer was no mincin' matters, Albert. Us was arskin'
for a miserable sinner, a lost sheep awnly just strayed back, an' we put it
plain as that was so."

"'Tweer mighty kind o' the Luke Gosp'lers, sir."

"'Twas their dooty. Now I be gwaine to read the Book."

"I feels that uneasy now," whined the sufferer, in a voice where fear spoke
instead of hope, "but I s'pose 'tis a sign o' graace I should be?"

"Iss, 'tis. I've comed to tell 'e the truth, for 'tis ill as a man should
be blind to facts on what may be his last bed 'bove the airth. Listen to
this, my son, an' if theer's anything you doan't onderstand, arsk me an'
I'll thraw light 'pon it."

He read, with loud, slow voice, the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, and that
glorious clarion of great promise gave Michael the lie and drowned his own
religious opinions as thunder drowns the croaking of marsh frogs; but he