“You’ve always been what a gentleman should be to Gerda’s mother and me! But that’s what them chaps said.” And Mr. Torp fixed a somewhat gloomy eye upon his own spittle as it descended the uninscribed headstone. “A scholar like what you be,” resumed the monument-maker, “won’t give no credit to the wambling words of plain men like they. But I bain’t no scholar; and they notions taunt me mind. ’Tis all very well for gentlemen to put down their thumbs at Providence. Them whose brains be work-sodden have to guard theyselves from He. If ’twere only plagues and pestilences He showered down, it might be all one. ’Tis they lightnings, murders, and sudden deaths what send we to cover⁠ ⁠… same as the poor beasties in field!”

Wolf shifted the manuscript upon his knee into an easier position.