"I suppose I can do it. I work for a living."
"I am sure that is nothing against you," said Edith kindly.
"You will not live long in Pushton before learning that there is something against us," was the bitter reply. "But that need not prevent my working for you, as I do for others. If you wish, I will make a fire in your house early, to take off the chill and dampness, and then go for your furniture. The people here will send you out in a carriage." "I shall be greatly obliged if you will do so and let me pay you."
"Oh, certainly, I will charge the usual rates."
"Well, then, how much for to-night?" said Edith as she stood in the hotel door.
"To-night is another affair," and he jumped into his wagon and rattled away in the darkness, his lantern looking like a "will-o'-the-wisp" that might vanish altogether.
The landlord received Edith and her attendant with a gruff civility, and gave her in charge of his wife, who was a bustling red-faced woman with a sort of motherly kindness about her.
"Why, you poor child," she said to Edith, turning her round before the light, "you're half drowned. You must have something hot right away, or you'll take your death o' cold," and with something of her husband's faith in whiskey, she soon brought Edith a hot punch that for a few moments seemed to make the girl's head spin, but as it was followed by strong tea and toast, she felt none the worse, and danger from the chill and wet was effectually disposed of.
As she sat sipping her tea before a red-hot stove, she told, in answer to the landlady's questions, how she had got up from the boat.
"Who is this Lacey, and what is there against them?" she asked suddenly.