"Don't shout—do you hear me?—no shouting," said Dr. Kirby, imperatively. He had been obliged to leave his place beside the litter, there was no room for his horse between the close-pressing ranks; now he rode forward in order to keep a control, if possible, over the joyous throng. "If you shout, it will be very bad for him," he went on, threateningly. He had stopped his horse and was addressing them from the saddle; the litter was some distance behind.
"But we gotter do sumpen, marse," said one of the men, protestingly.
"Dance, then! But make no noise about it; when he's safely in his own house again, then go down to the pier, if you like, and shout as much as you please."
This was done. The negroes preceded the litter through the streets of Gracias, and waited in sympathetic silence until Mr. Moore had been carried into the rectory, and the door was closed behind him; then they adjourned to the pier, and danced and shouted there as if, old Mrs. Kirby declared, with her hand over her little ears—"as if they meant to raise the dead."
"No, ma, no; they mean to raise the living if they can," said her son, when he came in.
He had been more affected than he would confess by that welcome out on the barren. He had not known himself how much attached he was to the mild-voiced clergyman until it had become probable that soon they should hear that voice no more. The danger of death was now averted, he hoped, though the illness might be a long one; in his own mind he registered a vow never to call any one "limp" again;—he had called Mr. Moore that about once a week for years. "There's a kind of limpness that's strength"—thus he lectured himself. "And you, Reginald Kirby, for all your talk, might not, in an emergency, be able even to approach it. And turning out your toes, and sticking out your chest won't save you, my boy; not a whit!"
Fond as Aunt Katrina was of the position of patroness, she was not altogether pleased with some steps that were taken, later. "A proper acknowledgment, of course, is all very well," she said. "But you and Margaret, between you, have really given Mr. Moore a comfortable little fortune. And you have put it in his own hands, too—to do what he likes with!"
"Whose hands would you have put it into?" Winthrop asked.
"A lawyer's, of course," Aunt Katrina answered.
"I am afraid Margaret and I are not always as judicious as you are, Aunt Kate."