And now Mrs. Wheeler, on her part, thought—but did not say—that it was most absurd for Mrs. Goodwin to complain of anything having driven Morton away from salvation, since, according to her Calvinistic doctrine, he must be saved anyhow if he were elected. It is so easy to be inconsistent when we try to reason about God's relation to his creatures; and so easy to see absurdity in any creed but our own!
The twilight deepened, and Mrs. Goodwin, unable now to endure the darkness, lit her candle. Then there was a knock at the door. Ever since Sunday the mother, waiting between hope and despair, had turned pale at every sound of footsteps without. Now she called out, "Come in!" in a broken voice, and Mr. Brady entered, having just dismissed his school.
"Troth, me dair madam, it's not meself that can give comfort. I'm sure to say something not intoirely proper to the occasion, whiniver I talk to anybody in throuble—something that jars loike a varb that disagrees with its nominative in number and parson, as I may say. But I thought I ought to come and say you, and till you as I don't belave Moirton would do anything very bad, an' I'm shoore he'll be home afore the wake's out. I've soiphered it out by the Rule of Thray. As Moirton Goodwin wuz to his other throubles—comin' out all roight—so is Moirton Goodwin to his present difficculties. If the first term and the third is the same, then the sicond and the fourth has got to be idintical. Perhaps I'm talkin' too larned; but you're an eddicated woman, Mrs. Goodwin, and you can say that me dimonsthration's entoirely corrict. Moirton'll fetch the answer set down in the book ivery toime, without any remainder or mistake. Thair's no vulgar fractions about him."
"Fractious, did you say?" spoke in Job Goodwin, who had held his hand up to his best ear, to hear what Brady was saying. "No, I don't 'low he was fractious, fer the mos' part. But he's gone now, and he'll git killed like Lew did, and we'll all hev the fever, and then they'll be a war weth the Bridish, and the Injuns'll be on us, and it 'pears like as if they wa'n't no eend of troubles a-comin'. Hey?"
At that very moment the latch was jerked up and Henry came bursting into the room, gasping from excitement.
"What is it? Injuns?" asked Mr. Goodwin, getting to his feet.
But Henry gasped again.
"Spake!" said Brady. "Out wid it!"
"Mort's—a-puttin'—Dolly—in the stable!" said the breathless boy.
"Dolly's in the stable, did you say?" queried Job Goodwin, sitting down again hopelessly. "Then somebody—Injuns, robbers, or somebody—'s killed Mort, and she's found her way back!"