They always do; they always have done--just
like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last."
But the Master said again, "O you labouring men! How seldom do we
ever hear of you, except in connection with some trouble!"
"Master," he replied, "I am Nobody, and little likely to be heard of
(nor yet much wanted to be heard of, perhaps), except when there is
some trouble. But it never begins with me, and it never can end
with me. As sure as Death, it comes down to me, and it goes up from
me."
There was so much reason in what he said, that the Bigwig family,
getting wind of it, and being horribly frightened by the late
desolation, resolved to unite with him to do the things that were
right--at all events, so far as the said things were associated with
the direct prevention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence.
But, as their fear wore off, which it soon began to do, they resumed
their falling out among themselves, and did nothing. Consequently
the scourge appeared again--low down as before--and spread
avengingly upward as before, and carried off vast numbers of the
brawlers. But not a man among them ever admitted, if in the least
degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do with it.
So Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way; and this, in the
main, is the whole of Nobody's story.
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