Clergy -- United States -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Word of God (Christian theology) -- Fiction
When Philippa Roberts had fled out into the night for help, her father
and old Hannah were too alarmed to notice her absence. They went
hurrying back and forth with this remedy and that. Again and again
they were ready to give up; once Henry Roberts said, "He is gone!" and
once Hannah began to cry, and said, "Poor lad, poor boy!" Yet each
made one more effort, their shadows looming gigantic against the walls
or stretching across the ceiling, bending and sinking as they knelt
beside the poor young man, who by that time was beyond speech. So the
struggle went on. But little by little life began to gain. John
Fenn's eyes opened. Then he smiled. Then he said something-they could
not hear what.
"Bless the Lord!" said Henry Roberts.
"He's asking for Philly," said old Hannah. By the time the doctor and
Philippa reached the house the shadow of death had lifted.
"It must have been poison," Mr. Roberts told the doctor. "When he gets
over it he will tell us what it was."
"I don't believe he will," said William King; he was holding Fenn's
wrist between his firm fingers, and then he turned up a fluttering
eyelid and looked at the still dulled eye.
Philippa, kneeling on the other side of John Fenn, said loudly: "I
will tell HIM--and perhaps God will forgive me."
The doctor, glancing up at her, said: "No, you won't--anyhow at
present. Take that child up-stairs, Hannah," he commanded, "and put her
to bed. She ran all the way to Old Chester to get me," he explained to
Henry Roberts.
Before he left the house that night he sat for a few minutes at
Philippa's bedside. "My dear little girl," he said, in his kind,
sensible voice, "the best thing to do is to forget it. It was a
foolish thing to do--that charm business; but happily no harm is done.
Now say nothing about it, and never do it again."
Philippa turned her shuddering face away. "Do it again? OH!"
As William King went home he apologized to Jinny for that cut across
her flanks by hanging the reins on the overhead hook, and letting her
plod along at her own pleasure. He was saying to himself that he hoped
he had done right to tell the child to hold her tongue. "It was just
tomfoolery," he argued; "there was no sin about it, so confession
wouldn't do her any good; on the contrary, it would hurt a girl's
self-respect to have a man know she had tried to catch him. But what a
donkey he was not to see.... Oh yes; I'm sure I'm right," said William
King. "I wonder how Dr. Lavendar would look at it?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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