"He warn't so bad after all," they allowed. "'Twarn't so much his fault that there well fell in." They even remembered how he had watched and prayed by the sick-beds. They went so far as to hope he "wouldn't be took." And the doctor, who read them like a book, smiled to himself as he watched the poison of prejudice gradually dying in their hearts, and common sense and a small measure of justice stealing back into their perverted minds.
At last came a day when the good man came gaily down the staircase and opened the door with the welcome words, "A decided change for the better. Please God, we'll pull him through now." And a subdued murmur of joy arose from the little crowd of women and children that gathered every morning round the house to see the doctor go away and hear the latest news.
Foremost among these was Annie Chapman—hard working, untidy, cheery Annie. She has improved very little in any respect except in her household arrangements; but though no power on earth could ever succeed in making her tidy, cleanliness has become her ruling passion. She scrubs, and rubs, and washes everything she can lay her hands on, and no future outbreak of fever or any other disease shall ever, she declares, be laid to her door. So out of evil will come good, and the Willowton of the future promises to be a very different place from the fever haunt it has been for the past half-century, if the doctor and the vicar and Annie Chapman can make it so.
And now there only remains for us to see how things fared with Geo Lummis, who so suddenly found himself acting so important a part in the annals of the village. Dr. Davies was anxious to keep him under his eye as a professional man-nurse; but Geo struck at that. He was very glad, he said, to have been of use to the gentlemen, both of them, but sick-nursing was no work for him. He pined for the fresh air and the open fields, and, if the truth must be known, for the ripple of the water under the bridge. Not that he meant to return either to his old ways or his old companions, for he has done with Corkam for ever; and Milly Greenacre and he have made their minds to be married as soon as the vicar is well enough to marry them. And as if wonders would never cease, Milly's scruples about leaving her old grandfather alone have all been removed in the most unexpected manner. While Geo has been nursing the vicar all the past month, old Jimmy had been spending all his odd moments with Mrs. Lummis, with the result that he and Geo are going to play at "puss in the corner," and there are going to be two weddings instead of one! Geo is coming to live in the Greenacres' pretty cottage, and old Jimmy is going to hang up his hat on Geo's old peg in his mother's house. A more satisfactory arrangement of all parties could not be imagined: for Jimmy has saved quite a little hoard of money, enough to keep him comfortable, he hopes, for the rest of his life; and Geo has been taken on as a farm labourer by Mr. Barlow, with the promise of an extra teamster's place, and he is looking forward to getting his seven pounds for the harvest which is now about to begin, after which he and Milly are to be made man and wife.
THE END