Ian Hay

“ Carthew, with Hopper's arms tightening convulsively round him, started up.
"Is it true?" he asked hoarsely.
"Aye! Listen! They have found us. They are within a few yards of us," said Entwistle.
"Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!" sang Atkinson suddenly and exultantly, and the others joined him. ”

“ At length some one sat up in the darkness, and the voice of Atkinson said:—
"Mr Carthew, sir, I think a song of praise would hearten us all."
"I believe it would," said Carthew. He was not enamoured of the corybantic hymnology of the Salvation Army, but the horror of black darkness was beginning to eat into his soul, and he knew that the others were probably in a worse plight. "What shall we sing?" ”

“ Should a man who was an Independent allow himself or his bairns to have aught to do with Church folk on any pretence whatever?
He was answered in the darkness by a third voice. Denton, the hewer—Atkinson, the retired Salvationist, shovelled and wheeled away in a tub what Denton hewed—had awoken from an uneasy sleep, and was listening to the conversation. Of all that little band, probably he was the least prepared to die. ”

“ In a blue envelope at the bottom of his private strong-box they would find his will, a primitive document composed in secrecy, and endorsed: "To be opened when I have gone out for good." In this he had bequeathed all he possessed to "my friend Miss Nina Tallentyre," be she maid, wife, or widow at the moment. Carthew was not a man who loved by halves. ”

“ Perhaps, he reflected, dying men, provided they had lived clean and run straight, were always accorded this privilege. Only the credit side of the ledger accompanied them on their journey into the unknown. ”

“ Well, he comes with me, and he sat by my Maggie all the neet through, and sent me with a note to a doctor that were a friend of his, and only went away himsel' at seven o'clock next morning, because he had to get shaved and take early service or summat. That's all your chapel folk ever done for me, Amos Entwistle."
"That was a special case, and proves no rules. Besides," said Entwistle soberly, "this is no time for religious differences. We are in God's hands now, and I doubt we shall all be in a place soon where there is neither Church nor Chapel." ”