Part 48 (2/2)

These words were a flash of light on a neglected corner to Tommy. ”Now I see, now I ken,” he exclaimed, amazed; ”now I ken what my mother meant!

Blinder, is that no the kind of man that's called masterful?”

”It's what poor women find them and call them to their cost,” said Blinder.

Tommy's excitement was prodigious. ”Now I ken, now I see!” he cried, slapping his leg and stamping up and down the room.

”Sit down!” roared his host.

”I canna,” retorted the boy. ”Oh, to think o't, to think I came to speir that question at you, to think her and me has wondered what kind he was, and I kent a' the time!” Without staying to tell Blinder what he was blethering about, he hurried off to Grizel, who was waiting for him in the Den, and to her he poured out his astonis.h.i.+ng news.

”I ken all about them, I've kent since afore I came to Thrums, but though I generally say the prayer, I've forgot to think o' what it means.” In a stampede of words he told her all he could remember of his mother's story as related to him on a grim night in London so long ago, and she listened eagerly. And when that was over, he repeated first his prayer and then Elspeth's, ”O G.o.d, whatever is to be my fate, may I never be one of them that bow the knee to masterful man, and if I was born like that and canna help it, O take me up to heaven afore I'm fil't.” Grizel repeated it after him until she had it by heart, and even as she said it a strange thing happened, for she began to draw back from Tommy, with a look of terror on her face.

”What makes you look at me like that?” he cried.

”I believe--I think--you are masterful,” she gasped.

”Me!” he retorted indignantly.

”Now,” she went on, waving him back, ”now I know why I would not give in to you when you wanted me to be Stroke's wife. I was afraid you were masterful!”

”Was that it?” cried Tommy.

”Now,” she proceeded, too excited to heed his interruptions, ”now I know why I would not kiss your hand, now I know why I would not say I liked you. I was afraid of you, I--”

”Were you?” His eyes began to sparkle, and something very like rapture was pus.h.i.+ng the indignation from his face. ”Oh, Grizel, have I a power ower you?”

”No, you have not,” she cried pa.s.sionately. ”I was just frightened that you might have. Oh, oh, I know you now!”

”To think o't, to think o't!” he crowed, wagging his head, and then she clenched her fist, crying, ”Oh, you wicked, you should cry with shame!”

But he had his answer ready, ”It canna be my wite, for I never kent o't till you telled me. Grizel, it has just come about without either of us kenning!”

She shuddered at this, and then seized him by the shoulders. ”It has not come about at all,” she said, ”I was only frightened that it might come, and now it can't come, for I won't let it.”

”But can you help yoursel'?”

”Yes, I can. I shall never be friends with you again.”

She had such a capacity for keeping her word that this alarmed him, and he did his best to extinguish his lights. ”I'm no masterful, Grizel,” he said, ”and I dinna want to be, it was just for a minute that I liked the thought.” She shook her head, but his next words had more effect. ”If I had been that kind, would I have teached you Elspeth's prayer?”

”N-no, I don't think so,” she said slowly, and perhaps he would have succeeded in soothing her, had not a sudden thought brought back the terror to her face.

”What is 't now?” he asked.

”Oh, oh, oh!” she cried, ”and I nearly went away with you!” and without another word she fled from the Den. She never told the doctor of this incident, and in time it became a mere shadow in the background, so that she was again his happy housekeeper, but that was because she had found strength to break with Tommy. She was only an eager little girl, pathetically ignorant about what she wanted most to understand, but she saw how an instinct had been fighting for her, and now it should not have to fight alone. How careful she became! All Tommy's wiles were vain, she would scarcely answer if he spoke to her; if he had ever possessed a power over her it was gone, Elspeth's prayer had saved her.

Jean Myles had told Tommy to teach that prayer to Elspeth; but who had told him to repeat it to Grizel?

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