'Did she?'
'Yes, and they all cried. And you don't know what Mr. Morris says—he says if it hadn't been for you, she would have been drowned before any of them could possibly have reached her: and that you have saved her life.'
Sam could make no reply. The thought that he had saved a life, and the life of one so beautiful and so much beloved, was too full of happiness, and it overpowered him. The door now opened slowly, and Peter's shaggy head made its appearance. He had a bundle under his arm—Sam's clothes, which had been dried and ironed for him. Seeing Sam sitting up, he hobbled to the bedside, took both his crutches under one arm, and throwing the other around Sam, gave him a hug—well meant, no doubt, and expressive of his kind feelings; but which would have been much more in keeping had Peter been holding on to a main-top-gallant-mast in a gale of wind.
Sam was soon arrayed in his old but clean garments. While he was dressing, Peter stood with his crutches properly adjusted for moving, his jaws working very rapidly, and his head nodding approvingly at Sam.
'And now, come, my hearty, you're all rigged. The ladies want to see you in t'other room; come.'
'Oh, no, no, no; I can't do that; I can't go, no how.'
'I tell you what it is, you're a good fellow of your age as ever handled an oar; but you are too dumbfounded perverse in your own ways. Here is you been a saving this child, riskin' your own life; and when they want jist to say to you, "God bless you," and kind o' relieve their own minds, you up and won't go.'
But Sam persisted; he would jump into the water again if that was necessary; but as to going into a fine parlor, and being looked at by fine ladies, it was not to be thought of. Peter was about to make some violent pleas against Sam's 'perverseness,' as he called it; when seeing the Major, he suddenly adjusted his crutches, stroked down his queue, and backed off to another part of the room.
We must now leave Sam to the care of these friends, and see what is going on beneath the humble roof of his parents; an eventful day it proved for him and for them.
Bill Tice had done the errand which Mr. Grizzle intrusted to him. A few days after, the old yellow gig of Mr. Richard Tucker was seen standing at Mr. Grizzle's door, while the two worthies were sitting together in a little back room, adjoining the store, with an old greasy account-book lying on the table beside them, and sundry papers in Mr. Tucker's handwriting open, and almost ready to be folded up and put into a dirty pocket-book belonging to said Mr. Tucker; which was also lying there, and waiting to inclose within its clasp an instrument fully charged with a power to torture, only surpassed by the wheel, which, in former days, twisted the joints of the wretched victims from their strong fastenings.