{"id":"01KG8AM4QP0HWM395XA8BRMPVM","cid":"bafkreifwiapxbo4gtdsrbzebkx22zam4zs3tkkqfkkyvf3z24qqly4vpai","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6128,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.985Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 8","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":6057,"text":"paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness of a\r\nmother-to-be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched beneath\r\nthe mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But she smiled\r\nupon me, as apologising for the unavoidable disorder of a Monday and a\r\nwashing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me down in the\r\nbest seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled constitution.\r\n\r\nI thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low fire,\r\nand--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the room,\r\nwhile the good woman, throwing on more sticks, said she was sorry the\r\nroom was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly,\r\nhowever--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire\r\nTeamster’s forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the\r\nliving tree for the Squire’s fires. It needed not her remark, whatever\r\nit was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some being\r\nquite mossy and toad-stooled with long lying bedded among the\r\naccumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and\r\nvain spluttering enough.\r\n\r\n‘You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least,’ said the dame;\r\n‘what I have you are heartily welcome to.’\r\n\r\nI thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the\r\nleast, but go on with her usual affairs.\r\n\r\nI was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and\r\nconstitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness\r\nupon them. The shrivelled sashes shook in their frames, and the green\r\npanes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand\r\nthe dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly open.\r\nThe floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen was. Nothing but\r\nbare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best sort. Not a\r\nprint on the wall; but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the smoked\r\nchimney-shelf.\r\n\r\n‘You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness.’\r\n\r\n‘No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say.’\r\n\r\n‘Oh, but _I_ am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think,’ and\r\nher soft, sad, blue eye ran over my dress. ‘But I must sweep these\r\nshavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before\r\nsunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to\r\nclear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They’d be\r\nmuch better, though, were they not so green.’\r\n\r\nNow if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those\r\ngreen shavings ‘Poor Man’s Matches,’ or ‘Poor Man’s Tinder,’ or some\r\npleasant name of that sort.\r\n\r\n‘I do not know,’ said the good woman, turning round to me again, as she\r\nstirred among her pots on the smoky fire--‘I do not know how you will\r\nlike our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.’\r\n\r\n‘Ah, what they call “Poor Man’s Pudding,” I suppose you mean.’\r\n\r\nA quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.\r\n\r\n‘_We_ do not call it so, sir,’ she said, and was silent.\r\n\r\nUpbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to\r\nmyself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and seen\r\nthat flush.\r\n\r\nAt last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door,\r\nand another voice said, ‘Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again in\r\na jiff--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be\r\nspeedy; because the Squire---- Good-day, sir,’ he exclaimed, now first\r\ncatching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his wife,\r\ninquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from his\r\npatched boots to the floor.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 8"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVQ8D7NW8GVW8QE4DYG9","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM4QPSN48FZMZSPV9F40K","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AM4QP8RMGFDPWA964GSP5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:27.382Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.103Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}