The last thrust was pure malice, and the big man winced; but not altogether at thought of the stick or the sprained ankle.
"I've got no home," he said; "thanks to you, Bethesda Pool! You've seen that my girl got off safe with that good-for-nothin' feller, and that's the last of any home for me! I hope it's done ye good!"
"It has so!" replied Miss Bethesda, rubbing the ankle briskly with her favourite liniment. "A sight o' good it's done me, Mr. Bradford, and I hope 'twill do you good, too, some day!"
"May I ask," Buckstone continued, grimly, glowering down on the little woman, as she knelt beside him, "why you felt called to make or meddle in my affairs, Miss Bethesda Pool?"
"You may!" said Miss Bethesda, looking up with fire in her eye. "Your girl, pretty creetur, come cryin' to me the other day, and told me all about how you was treating her, Buckstone Bradford; and 'twas a shame, and you know it was! There's nothing in this world against Will Newell, well you know! He's a church-member, and he's well thought of by all that's acquainted with him. You didn't like his father, because you thought I,—because you thought things about him that there was no occasion for thinking, and he killed in the war afterwards and all; and that's all the reason, save and except that you are a greedy grab-all, Buckstone Bradford, and don't want your girl to do anything all her days 'cept wait on you! That's the living truth, and you know it as well as I do! Hurt ye, did I? Well, I'm sorry for that, but if I could hurt your mind instead of your ankle, I should be pleased to death! I can speak when I've a mind to, if they do call me a dummy; and I'm speaking to you now, Buckstone, and don't you forget it! You've been acting mean and selfish and greedy, and every right-thinking person in this village is disgusted with you, clean through to the ground! So, now! And I helped them children off for pure pleasure, so I did, and for love of seeing young things happy, if I aint ben happy myself! Not that that's here or there. I planned this party for it, and laid out consid'able money, and set every tongue in the village clacking till they e'enamost dropped off, and a mighty good thing, too, if they had! and I sent for Will Newell, and showed him where he could hitch his hoss, and how he could git his girl off the quickest and the safest. You was pretty spry, Buckstone, but you wouldn't ha' caught 'em, even if you hadn't—if you hadn't have fell down the Tumplety Hole. And—and that's what I did, and glad clean through to my back-comb that I done it, and would do it again the fust time I got a chance!"
Miss Bethesda paused for breath, and bound up the lame ankle, wrapping it in fold on fold of cool linen. She expected thunders of reply, but Buckstone Bradford was silent.
There was a long pause, during which the coals tinkled in the grate and the frost cracked and snapped outside.
At length,—"The Tumplety Hole!" he said, musingly. "Yes, that was it! I was trying to think what we used to call it, and I couldn't bring the name to mind. The Tumplety Hole, sure enough! And you come up through it, one day, dressed in a white gown with silver trimmin's,—"
"That I found in the old trunk up garret!" put in Miss Bethesda.