“You speak hopefully, Hamish.”
Hamish smiled. “I feel so, sir.”
“Do you feel so, also, my friend!” said Dr. Lamb, fervently. “Go forth to the remedy as I did, in the full confidence that God can, and will, send His blessing upon it.”
CHAPTER XVIII. — MR. JENKINS ALIVE AGAIN.
The quiet of Sunday was over, and Helstonleigh awoke on the Monday morning to the bustle of every-day life. Mr. Jenkins awoke, with others, and got up—not Jenkins the old bedesman, but his son Joseph, who had the grey mare for his wife. It was Mr. Jenkins’s intention to resume his occupation that day, with Mr. Hurst’s and Mrs. Jenkins’s permission: the former he might have defied; the latter he dared not. However, he was on the safe side, for both had accorded it.
Mrs. Jenkins was making breakfast in the small parlour behind her hosiery shop, when her husband appeared. He looked all the worse for his accident. Poor Joe was one whom a little illness told upon. Thin, pale, and lantern-jawed at the best of times—indeed he was not infrequently honoured with the nickname of “scare-crow”—he now looked thinner and paler than ever. His tall, shadowy form seemed bent with the weakness induced by lying a few days in bed; while his hair had been cut off in three places at the top of his head, to give way to as many patches of white plaster.
“A nice figure you’ll cut in the office, to-day, with those ornaments on your crown!” was Mrs. Jenkins’s salutation.
“I am thinking to fold this broadly upon my head, and tie it under my chin,” said he, meekly, holding out a square, black silk handkerchief which he had brought down in his hand.