Mary Mapes Dodge

“ He looked near enough to it, poor lad!"
"Raff Brinker! If you're going to treat me this way, and I nursing you and bearing with you since I was twenty-two years old, it's a shame. Aye, and a disgrace," cried the vrouw, growing quite red and scant of breath.
Raff's voice was feeble yet. "Treat you WHAT way, Meitje?"
"What way," said Dame Brinker, mimicking his voice and manner. "What way? Why, just as every woman in the world is treated after she's stood by a man through the worst, like a--"
"Meitje!"
Raff was leaning forward with outstretched arms. His eyes were full of tears. ”

“ It's hard not to be told about the watch after waiting ten years to know, but I'll ask thee no more, Raff. Here, we'll put the thing away that's made the first trouble between us, after God just gave thee back to me."
"I was a fool to cry, Meitje," he said, kissing her, "and it's no more than right that ye should know the truth. But it seemed as if it might be telling the secrets of the dead to talk about the matter."
"Is the man--the lad--thou wert talking of dead, think thee?" asked the vrouw, hiding the watch in her hand but seating herself expectantly on the end of his long foot bench. ”

“ Well, I took him down--it might be six or eight miles--and then he said he could run the rest of the way on shore. I was in haste to get the boat back. Before he jumped out, he says, sobbing-like, 'I can trust you. I've done a thing--God knows I never intended it--but the man is dead. ”