Part 34 (1/2)
”Oh, leave us go home!”
”He'll be cotchin' you!”
I could bear it no longer: nor wished to know any more about h.e.l.l. I took her hand, and dragged her from the black shadow of the rock: crying out that we must now go home. Then we went back to Tom Tot's cheerful kitchen; and there I no longer feared h.e.l.l, but could not forget, try as I would, what Mary Tot had told me about love.
Skipper Tommy Lovejoy was preaching what the doctor called in his genial way ”The Gospel According to Tommy.”
”Sure, now, Tom Tot,” said he, ”the Lard is a Skipper o' wonderful civil disposition. 'Skipper Tommy,' says He t' me, 'an you only does the best----'”
”You're too free with the name o' the Lard.”
Skipper Tommy looked up in unfeigned surprise. ”Oh, no, Tom,” said he, mildly, ”I isn't. The Lard an' me is----”
”You're too free,” Tom Tot persisted. ”Leave Un be or you'll rue it.”
”Oh, no, Tom,” said the skipper. ”The Lard an' me gets along wonderful well together. We're _wonderful_ good friends. I isn't scared o' _He_!”
As we walked home, that night, the doctor told my sister and me that, whatever the greater world might think of the sin at Wayfarer's Tickle, whether innocuous or virulent, Jagger was beyond cavil flagrantly corrupting our poor folk, who were simple-hearted and easy to persuade: that he was, indeed, a nuisance which must be abated, come what would.
XXIII
The COURSE of TRUE LOVE
Symptoms of my dear sister's previous disorder now again alarmingly developed--sighs and downcast glances, quick flushes, infinite tenderness to us all, flashes of high spirits, wet lashes, tumultuously beating heart; and there were long dreams in the twilight, wherein, when she thought herself alone, her sweet face was at times transfigured into some holy semblance. And perceiving these unhappy evidences, I was once more disquieted; and I said that I must seek the doctor's aid, that she might be cured of the perplexing malady: though, to be sure, as then and there I impatiently observed, the doctor seemed himself in some strange way to have contracted it, and was doubtless quite incapable of prescribing.
My sister would not brook this interference. ”I'm not sayin',” she added, ”that the doctor couldn't cure me, an he had a mind to; for, Davy, dear,” with an earnest wag of her little head, ”'twould not be the truth. I'm only sayin' that I'll not have un try it.”
”Sure, why, Bessie?”
Her glance fell. ”I'll not tell you why,” said she.
”But I'm wantin' t' know.”
She pursed her lips.
”Is you forgettin',” I demanded, ”that I'm your brother?”
”No,” she faltered.
”Then,” said I, roughly, ”I'll have the doctor cure you whether you will or not!”
She took my hand, and for a moment softly stroked it, looking away.
”You're much changed, dear,” she said, ”since our mother died.”
”Oh, Bessie!”
”Ay,” she sighed.