one after one
`` If I had but a gold watch I could save her ! '' he cried in his agony , as he left the house . `` Ever since the old gold watch was sold , they have died -- they have died ! They are gone , one after one , the last of all my children ! '' In these lonely valleys lurks a strange old superstition that even Death must listen to the voice of Time in gold ; that , when the scanty numbered moments of the sick are fleeting , a gold watch laid in the wasted palm , and pointing the earthly hours , compels the scythe of Death to pause , the timeless power to bow before the two great gods of the human race -- time and gold . Poor George in the valley must have shown his watch . The despairing father must have been struck with crafty madness at the sight .