I had it set in the
garden by the great filberd-tree, and there it has stood for near
five-and-twenty years. (I ought to say that he had kept his promise
of altering the faces, and thereby to my thinking had defaced their
beauty: but beneath this defacement I still traced their first
likeness.)
'Now to speak of the originals. My way lying seldom by Goldsithney,
I saw little of John and Grace Magor during the next few years, and
nothing at all of them after they had left Goldsithney (their
fortunes not prospering) and rented a smaller farm on the coast
southward, below Rosudgeon: but what news came to me was ever of the
same tenour. Their marriage had brought neither children nor other
blessings. There were frequent quarrels, and the man had yielded to
drinking; the woman, too, it was reported. She, that had been so
trim a serving-maid, was become a slut with a foul tongue. They were
cruelly poor with it all; for money does not always stick to unclean
hands. I write all this to my reproach as well as to theirs, for
albeit they dwelt in another parish it had been my Christian duty to
seek them out. I did not, and I was greatly to blame.
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