I never asked
you for a fair share. I never asked you for all the money I'd
lent you from time to time. I asked you for mother's old necklace
with the hair locket in it. You wouldn't give me that: you
wouldn't give me anything. So as you refused me my due I took it,
just to give you a lesson.
ELDER DANIELS. Why didnt you take the necklace if you must steal
something? They wouldnt have hanged you for that.
BLANCO. Perhaps I'd rather be hanged for stealing a horse than
let off for a damned piece of sentimentality.
ELDER DANIELS. Oh, Blanco, Blanco: spiritual pride has been your
ruin. If youd only done like me, youd be a free and respectable
man this day instead of laying there with a rope round your neck.
BLANCO [turning on him] Done like you! What do you mean? Drink
like you, eh? Well, Ive done some of that lately. I see things.
ELDER DANIELS. Too late, Blanco: too late. [Convulsively] Oh, why
didnt you drink as I used to? Why didnt you drink as I was led to
by the Lord for my good, until the time came for me to give it
up? It was drink that saved my character when I was a young man;
and it was the want of it that spoiled yours. Tell me this. Did I
ever get drunk when I was working?
BLANCO. No; but then you never worked when you had money enough
to get drunk.
ELDER DANIELS. That just shews the wisdom of Providence and the
Lord's mercy. God fulfils himself in many ways: ways we little
think of when we try to set up our own shortsighted laws against
his Word.
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