But my push met with a more vigorous resistance than I had expected. My arms were caught just above the elbow and held as in a vice, and the raw-boned Irish doctor actually shook me.
"Would ye?" he cried, in his own unmistakable accents—"would ye, then?"
"Let me go, you fool," I gasped. "The marble figures have gone from the church; I tell you they've gone."
He broke into a ringing laugh. "I'll have to give ye a draught to-morrow, I see. Ye've bin smoking too much and listening to old wives' tales."
"I tell you, I've seen the bare slabs."
"Well, come back with me. I'm going up to old Palmer's—his daughter's ill; we'll look in at the church and let me see the bare slabs."
"You go, if you like," I said, a little less frantic for his laughter; "I'm going home to my wife."
"Rubbish, man," said he; "d'ye think I'll permit of that? Are ye to go saying all yer life that ye've seen solid marble endowed with vitality, and me to go all me life saying ye were a coward? No, sir—ye shan't do ut."
The night air—a human voice—and I think also the physical contact with this six feet of solid common sense, brought me back a little to my ordinary self, and the word "coward" was a mental shower-bath.
"Come on, then," I said sullenly; "perhaps you're right."