’Twas beyond the power of the fool to manage: who was now a fool, indeed––white and shivering in this Presence. I would fetch the parson, said I––and moved right willingly and in haste upon the errand. Aunt Esther followed me beyond the threshold. She caught my arm with such a grasp that I was brought up in surprise. We stood in the wind and rain. The light from the kitchen fell through the doorway into 145 the black night. Aunt Esther’s lean, brown face, as the lamp betrayed, was working with eager and shameless curiosity. They had wondered, these women of Whisper Cove, overlong and without patience, to know what they wished to know but could not discover. “She’ve been wantin’ Skipper Nicholas,” says she. “She’ve been callin’ for Skipper Nicholas. She’ve been singin’ out, Dannie, like a wretch in tarture. Tell un t’ come. She’ve been wantin’ un sore. She’ve a thing on her mind. Tell un not t’ fail. ’Tis something she’ve t’ tell un. ‘I wants Skipper Nicholas!’ says she. ‘Fetch Nicholas! I wants a word with he afore I die.’ Hist!” Aunt Esther added, as though imparting some delight, “I ’low ’tis the secret.”
I asked her concerning this secret.
“It haves t’ do,” says she, “with Judith.”
“An’ what’s that?”
She whispered.
“For shame!” I cried.
“Ay, but,” says she, “you isn’t a woman!”
“’Tis gossips’ employment, woman!”
“’Tis a woman’s wish t’ know,” she answered.
The thing concerned Judith: I was angered....