“Well, you see when you come, poor Emma felt elders and oils was all there was left to try—there’s a rare lot of you Peculiars down them parts and all the way to Southend, and they’d been gettin’ round her like gulls round the plough—so the instant you started barkin’——” “Barking?” gasped the little girl. “You had the croup—so she turned Peculiar,” he explained. “Like you,” he added reproachfully. “And a wery dangerous thing to do, bein’ as you might ha’ died like the tothers. Did, she’d ha’ been had up for child-murder—what she accused me of.” “And why weren’t the doctors had up, that didn’t save all my little brothers and sisters?” asked Jinny. “That’s just how your mother used to argufy,” he said angrily, flicking at poor Methusalem. “Turnin’ everything topsy-tivvy, Oi says. And what was the result? Two years arter you was prayed and oiled out o’ croup, she was took herself with smallpox and wouldn’t see a soul except elders and deacons and sich-like truck. Oi _will_ say for your father though, that he was allus firm with her; naught she could say could turn him from his Wesleyan principles, and when he caught her smallpox he had the doctor in like blazes and took all the medicine he could lay hands on. But Emma would stick to her own way—though she died of it, poor thing.” “But didn’t you tell me father died the same day as my angel mother?” “Ain’t that why Oi come for you in my cart, bein’ as the creditors sold up everythin’ except the infected beddin’?” “I know, Gran’fer,” she interrupted. “But then didn’t father die of _his_ way just as much as mother of hers?” “That’s a nat’ral death when you die with a doctor,” he maintained. “And were you there when they died?” said the child after a mournful pause. His brow clouded obstinately. “How could Oi be, dearie, bein’ as Oi’d taken my Bible oath?” “You could ha’ gone through the window?” “With folks lookin’ on and nusses about, as ’ud ha’ thought me loony. Why, ’twas impossible for me even to goo to the funeral.” “Oh, Gran’fer!” He looked fiercer, and poor Methusalem got another flick. “Wouldn’t Pegs be there, she havin’ her nat’ral feelin’? Could Oi let her think Oi’d come ’cos Oi was sorry Oi hadn’t made it up with my darter afore she died? Nay, that ’ud a-been right-down deceit, bein’ as there wasn’t no ground for remorse. Happen he’d a-been at the churchyard too with his fish-eye—dedn’t you see the stone he put up, drat his imperence, as ef Emma and Roger was aught of hisn—mebbe he’d a-preached to me as Oi ought to ha’ forgiven my darter time she was still alive. ’Twas on the cards he’d say Oi’d broken your mother’s heart, the blinkin’-fool, he not knowin’ ’twas me as raised her from the dead and had her goffling lobster with your feyther in a scarlet dressin’-gownd time he was knockin’ at her door to make inquirations——” “Yes, I’ve heard about that,” she interrupted. “Who told you?” he said suspiciously. “There was only three of us inside the door and two’s dead.”